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L.  B.   Cat.  No.   1 137 


Human   Heredity 


BY 


Casper  L.  Redfield 

Author  of  Control  of  Heredity,  Dynamic 
Evolution,  Great  Men,  Etc. 


CHICAGO 

Heredity  Publishing  Company 


1921 


.\ 


o- 


COPYRIGHT    1J21 
BT 

CASPER   L.    REDFIBDD 


E   ^  **•!!>/* 


M  C^.  State  Ooilege 


CONTENTS 

Page 

—^  •  *  * 

Preface iii 

Introduction   vi 

Chapter 

I. — Process  of  Power  Changes 13 

n.— Some  Eminent  Men 29 

ni.— The  Age  of  Parents 45 

IV. — From  Savagery  to  Civilization. .  56 

V.I — Evolution   of   Intelligence    and 

Longevity 70 

^  VI. — Disease  and  Immunity 82 

Index   105 


PREFACE 

The  things  set  forth  in  this  little  book  are  mat- 
ters of  fact,  and  not  a  philosophy  or  a  set  of 
opinions.  If  some  person  does  not  agree,  his 
proper  procedure  is  to  find  contrary  facts  to 
offset  those  here  presented.  As  there  is  an 
ample  supply  of  records,  there  is  no  excuse  for 
applying  denunciation  instead  of  getting  the 
facts. 

For  example,  my  tables  show  that  the  chil- 
dren bom  to  fathers  less  than  thirty  are  much 
more  numerous  than  those  born  to  fathers  over 
forty.  If  anyone  doubts  it,  let  him  go  to  the 
birth  registry  in  any  city,  or  to  family  geneal- 
ogies to  be  found  in  any  public  library.  In  ex- 
amining the  pedigrees  of  intellectually  eminent 
men  I  found  that  those  born  to  fathers  more 
than  forty  are  much  more  numerous  than  those 
born  to  fathers  less  than  thirty.  The  names  of 
the  men  in  my  list  are  given  in  my  Control  of 
Heredity,  and  in  my  Great  Men.  If  anyone 
questions  the  results  let  him  make  up  another 
list  of  equally  eminent  men  and  tell  us  what 
he  finds. 

•  •  • 

111 


A  person  will  not  read  this  book  unless  he  is 
interested  in  human  welfare.  If  he  is  interested 
in  human  welfare,  he  is  quite  competent  to  form 
his  own  opinions  from  the  facts  as  to  what  is 
the  best  policy  to  pursue.  For  example,  if  it 
clearly  appears  that  improvements  of  the  kind 
which  distinguish,'  the  higher  iraces  fr'om  the 
lower  ones  come  only  through  the  children  pro- 
duced in  the  later  reproductive  lives  of  their 
parents,  he  will  have  no  difficulty  in  forming  an 
opinion  of  laws  which  permit  a  fourteen-year- 
old  boy  to  marry  a  twelve-year-old  girl,  or  of 
customs  which  control  births  by  shutting  off  all 
but  a  few  produced  soon  after  marriage. 

I  have  given  a  few  conclusions  when  the  con- 
text seemed  to  call  for  them,  but  for  the  most 
part  I  have  left  the  reader  to  draw  his  own 
conclusions.  In  a  good  many  cases  they  are  so 
self-evident  as  to  need  no  comment. 

C.  L.  R. 

March,  1921. 


IV 


INTRODUCTION. 

Darwin  wrote  "The  Origin  of  Species,"  and 
that  title  represents  his  contribution  to  science. 
While  there  are  several  races  of  men,  it  is  gen- 
erally considered  that  there  is  only  one  species. 
As  we  are  not  interested  in  producing  a  new 
species  of  man,  or  in  increasing  the  number  of 
races  of  men,  the  origin  of  species  has  only  an 
academic  interest  for  those  persons  who  are 
looking  toward  human  improvement. 

Man  has  risen  little  by  little  from  savagery  to 
civilization,  and  the  things  we  are  here  interested 
in  are  those  characteristics  which  distinguish  the 
civilized  man  from  the  savage.  Going  a  step 
further,  we  are  interested  in  producing  in  the 
entire  human  family  more  of  those  character- 
istics which  distinguish  such  men  as  Newton, 
Shakespeare  and  Franklin  from  their  feeble- 
minded neighbors.  As  these  are  not  the  things 
by  which  we  distinguish  one  species  from 
another,  it  should  be  evident  that  the  Darwinian 
theory  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  improvement 
of  human  beings. 

vi 


Perhaps  the  reader  will  say  that  it  is  incon- 
ceivable that  selection  has  nothing  to  do  with 
human  improvements.  There  are  several  answers 
to  that.  One  is  that  selecting  an  improvement  is 
not  making  it,  and  we  are  interested  in  the  proc- 
ess of  manufacture.  Another  answer  is  that 
Darwin  knew  his  own  theory  better  than  anyone 
else  knows  it,  and  in  his  Origin  of  Species, 
(Vol  I,  p.  282)  he  says  that  "no  one  can  solve 
the  problem  why,  of  two  races  of  savages,  one 
has  risen  higher  in  the  scale  of  civilization  than 
the  other;  and  this  apparently  implies  brain- 
power." A  third  answer  is  that  selection  for 
mental  qualities  has  been  carried  on  in  the  British 
peerage  for  about  seven  hundred  years,  and  the 
result  is  failure. 

Mendel  crossed  the  tall  pea  on  the  short  pea, 
the  wrinkled  pea  on  the  smooth  pea,  and  the  pea 
of  one  color  on  the  pea  of  another  color,  and 
then  he  in-bred  the  progeny.  His  followers  have 
done  the  same  things  with  other  plants  and  with 
various  animals,  and  have  confirmed  his  results. 
These  results  are  said  tO'  be  important  in  human 
heredity. 

Perhaps  so  and  perhaps  not.  Just  at  present 
we  are  not  interested  in  crossing  the  white  race 


vu 


on  a  race  of  some  other  color,  and  if  we  should 
do  so  the  law  would  prevent  us  from  breeding 
brother  and  sister  together  to  get  the  Mendelian 
segregation.  Up  to  the  present  it  has  not  been 
shown  that  we  can  get  pure  whites  and  pure 
blacks  by  breeding  Mulattos  together.  Also,  we 
are  not  particularly  interested  in  inches  in  height, 
color  of  hair,  or  shape  of  physical  organs,  and 
these  are  the  things  with  which  the  Mendelian 
theory  deals.  In  a  political  campaign,  the  politi- 
cal orator,  in  bringing  forward  the  merits  of  his 
candidate,  does  not  say :  "Vote  for  my  man,  he 
has  brown  eyes  and  curly  hair,  and  is  much 
superior  to  the  other  fellow,  who  has  red  hair 
and  a  pug  nose." 

We  are  interested  in  improvements  in  mental 
power,  physical  strength  and  endurance,  vitality, 
resistance  to  disease,  and  longevity.  These  are 
not  unit  characters  at  all,  and  consequently  do 
not  come  under  the  Mendelian  theory.  On  this 
point  I  will  refer  the  reader  to  the  New  York 
Medical  Journal  for  September  21,  1918. 

A  eugenic  theory  based  on  either  the  Darwin- 
ian theory  or  the  Mendelian  theory,  is  founded 
on  a  fallacy.  Those  theories  relate  to  matters 
of  no  consequence  in  the  rise  of  man  from  a 


viu 


lower  to  a  higher  plane  in  the  scale  of  evolution, 
and  the  matters  of  real  consequence  do  not  come 
under  those  theories. 

In  investigating  these  things  in  human  beings, 
and  elsewhere  among  living  organisms,  there  are 
certain  facts  which  stand  out  clearly,  and  which 
should  be  taken  into  consideration  in  any  study 
of  human  improvement.  It  seems  desirable  to 
make  here  a  brief  statement  of  what  siome  of 
these  facts  are. 

1.  The  main  things  in  human  beings,  and  in 
many  of  our  animals  and  plants,  are  matters  of 
power,  and  not  matters  of  structure  or  color. 
The  powers  of  all  living  things,  whether  animals 
or  plants,  are  increased  by  exercising  those  pow- 
ers previously  in  existence,  and  in  no  other  man- 
ner and  under  no  other  circumstances  or  condi- 
tions. A  man  cannot  become  an  athlete  by  sit- 
ting still,  no  matter  what  he  may  eat. 

2.  The  powers  within  any  living  thing  de- 
cline when  there  is  a  reduction  of  the  degree  of 
activity  which  previously  existed.  An  athlete 
gradually  loses  his  physical  powers  when  he  takes 
up  a  sedentary  life.  A  race  horse  retired  to  the 
breeding  ranks  gradually  loses  his  racing  powers. 

3.  The  gain  in  power  by  exercise,  and  the 


loss  of  power  by  idleness,  are  processes  which 
may,  and  frequently  do,  extend  through  the 
greater  part  of  long  lives.  There  is  no  known 
limit  to  the  increase  of  powers.  The  decrease 
of  powers  is  limited  only  by  death. 

4.  When  the  matter  extends  over  two  or 
more  generations,  improvements  come  through 
the  offspring  of  old  parents  and  not  through  the 
offspring  of  young  parents.  This  means  that 
the  origin  of  improvements  is  to  be  found  in 
something  which  occurs  in  the  lives  of  parents 
between  youth  and  old  age,  and  not  in  some 
spontaneous  variation  occurring  in  a  germ. 

5.  When  the  matter  extends  over  two  or  more 
generations,  improvements  in  a  particular  form 
of  power,  (as  mental  power,  trotting  power, 
resistance  to  disease,  etc.),  come  through  the 
offspring  of  parents  who  exercised  that  particu- 
lar power  to  an  unusual  extent  before  reproduc- 
ing, and  not  through  the  offspring  of  any  other 
kind  of  parents. 

6.  When  a  man  develops  the  muscular 
strength  of  his  arms  and  hands  by  manipulating 
a  pair  of  shears  which  he  uses  to  cut  off  the  tails 
of  mice,  the  effect  produced  upon  the  muscular 
strength  of  the  subsequently  conceived  son  of  this 


man  is  not  determined  by  examining  the  tails  of 
the  subsequently  conceived  mice. 

7.  The  idea  that  the  power  of  an  organism 
is  a  function  of  its  structure  is  the  same  fallacy 
that  resides  in  the  mind  of  a  man  who  tries  to 
make  a  perpetual  motion  machine.  That  man 
thinks  that  if  he  can  get  the  proper  structure  he 
can  get  unlimited  power  for  nothing. 

A  race  is  made  up  of  individuals,  and  improve- 
ment of  the  race  consists  in  improving  the  in- 
dividuals which  compose  it.  The  improvement  of 
an  individual  consists  in  developing  (increasing) 
some  one  or  more  of  his  powers.  An  individual 
can  come  into  possession  of  such  an  improvement 
only  by  exercise  or  by  inheritance.  But  an  in- 
dividual cannot  inherit  from  parents  something 
which  those  parents  did  not  have,  and  those  par- 
ents could  come  into  possession  of  the  improve- 
ment only  by  exercise  or  by  inheritance.  Unless 
we  are  to  accept  spontaneous  generation,  or  spe- 
cial creation,  for  the  form  of  improvements  here 
under  consideration,  we  have  to  accept  the  idea 
that  powers  developed  by  exercise  in  one  genera- 
tion are  inherited  by  the  next. 


xi 


Human  Heredity 

CHAPTER    I. 

PROCESS  OF  POWER  CHANGES. 

WHEN  Darwin  pointed  out  that  offspring 
resemble  their  parents,  that  there  is  va- 
riation which  makes  that  resemblance  not  exact, 
and  that  by  selecting  variations  of  one  kind  or  an- 
other great  changes  can  be  produced  in  a  few  gen- 
erations, he  was  simply  putting  into  scientific 
literature  facts  well  known  to  common  people 
since  long  before  the  dawn  of  history.  But  bring- 
ing those  well  known  but  ignored  facts  into  rela- 
tionship to  other  well  known  facts  brought  about 

a  revolution  in  our  ideas  about  the  animate  world. 
There  is  another  set  of  facts  which  are  the 
common  knowledge  of  common  people,  and  have 
been  known  to  our  ancestors  since  the  days  of 
the  cave  man.  They  are  facts  which  are  par- 
ticularly well  known  to  prize  fighters,  to  horse 
jockies,  and  to  sporting  men  in  general,  but  they 
seem  to  be  unknown  to  science.  Certain  it  is 
that  scientific  literature  ignores  these  facts  almost 

13 


14  Process  of  Power  Changes 

altogether,  and  a  large  part  of  scientific  teaching 
is  wholly  erroneous  because  it  is  in  direct  con- 
flict with  well  known  facts  which  may  be  easily 
verified.  I  refer  now  to  those  variations  which 
occur  in  the  powers  which  distinguish  the  live 
animal  or  the  live  plant  from  the  dead  one. 

When  I  say  that  these  facts  are  known  to  com- 
mon people  and  to  scientists  but  not  to  science,  I 
mean  that  it  is  known  how  variations  in  power 
capabilities  are  produced  in  individuals,  but  it  is 
not  known  to  what  extent  these  changes  may  be 
carried.  It  is  the  intention  here  tO'  show  some- 
thing of  the  extent  to  which  such  variations  may 
be  carried  by  deliberate  purpose,  and  to  bring 
into  view  isolated  facts  which  are  now  buried  in 
out  of  the  way  places,  and  to  show  that  they  are 
different  phases  of  one  and  the  same  thing. 

Men  train  for  athletic  contests,  horses  are 
trained  for  racing  purposes,  carrier  pigeons  are 
trained  for  long  flights,  and  dogs  are  trained  to 
perform  work  of  many  different  kinds.  When 
a  man  trains  for  a  physical  contest  he  takes  se- 
vere physical  exercise  day  after  day,  week  after 
week,  and  month  after  month.  The  exercise  is 
of  an  intensity  which  will  make  him  weary  each 
dav. 


Process  of  Power  Changes  15 

A  very  common  statement  found  in  scientific 
literature  is  to  the  effect  that  when  a  man  works 
hard  for  years  he  gets  worn  out,  has  his  vitality 
sapped,  and  falls  into  an  early  grave.  The  state- 
ment is  not  at  all  true.  The  process  of  expend- 
ing energy  through  bodily  organs  is  one  step  in 
the  larger  process  of  building  up  energy  within 
exercised  organs.  Instead  of  a  man  becoming 
worn  out  and  having  his  vitality  sapped  by  hard 
work,  hard  work  is  the  thing  that 'increases  his 
powers  and  vitality,  and  extends  the  length  of  his 
life. 

How  far  can  this  be  extended  in  man?  That 
we  do  not  know  as  we  do  not  have  scientific  rec- 
ords bearing  on  the  point,  but  by  personal  experi- 
ment I  have  found  that  a  man  may  add  to  his 
physical  strength  by  physical  exercise  after  he 
has  past  sixty  years  of  age.  But  it  is  frequently 
said  that  a  man  does  not  really  build  up  physical 
powers  by  physical  exercise,  and  that  all  he  does 
is  make  manifest  inherited  powers  within.  At 
this  point  we  will  go  over  to  the  trotting  horse, 
where  we  have  records  which  we  do  not  have  for 
man. 


1 6  Process  of  Power  Changes 

The  trotter  is  trained  for  racing  purposes,  and 

that  training  consists  in  driving  the  horse  at  the 

trot  day  after  day  and  year  after  year  until  finally 

retired  from  the  track.    A  racing  career  lasts  as 

long  as  it  is  financially  profitable,  and  no  longer. 

We  will  take  the  case  of  Goldsmith  Maid  as  it  is 

one  of  the  longest  of  which  we  have  full  records. 

A  horse  is  full  grown  at  three  or  four  years  of 

age,  and  a  few  of  them  live  more  than  twenty 

years.    The  record  here  begins  at  nine  years  of 

age  because  it  was  not  until  that  age  that  she  had 

developed  the  speed  which  would  classify  her  as 

a  "standard  trotter.'* 

Extreme  Speed  of  Goldsmith  Maid. 

Feet  per 

Age                                 Time  second 

Nine  years   2:30  35.20 

Ten  years   2:24^  36.54 

Eleven  years   2:22^  37.05 

Twelve  years   2:19^  37.85 

Fourteen  years    2:17  38.54 

Sixteen  years   2:16  38.82 

Seventeen  years    2:14  39.40 

One  thing  to  be  n;0ted  here  is  that  her  gain  in 
trotting  power  was  not  limited  to  the  attainment 
of  full  growth,  but  continued  year  after  year 
with  the  most  striking  improvements  made  in  the 
evening  of  life.    At  ten  years  of  age  Goldsmith 


Process  of  Power  Changes  17 

Maid  had  developed  more  trotting  power  than 
ever  existed  in  any  ancestor,  because,  at  the  time 
she  was  conceived,  no  horse  in  the  world  had  suc- 
ceeded in  trotting  a  mile  in  2 :24l/^,  and  those 
which  had  approached  that  speed  were  not  in  her 
ancestry.  Yet  after  her  trotting  development  un- 
der trotting  exercise  had  passed  the  point  of  any 
possible  inheritance,  she  made  further  gains  for 
seven  years  under  continued  training.  At  seven- 
teen years  of  age  she  broke  the  world's  record 
four  times  in  succession. 

During  the  past  century,  thousands  of  horses 
have  developed  more  trotting  power  than  was 
called  for  by  their  inheritance  because  their  de- 
velopment under  continued  exercise  exceeded 
anything  v/hich  ever  existed  in  any  ancestor. 
And  on  the  race  tracks  of  the  United  States 
during  1917,  more  than  one  hundred  trotters 
over  ten  years  of  age  showed  more  speed  than 
they  ever  show^ed  before. 

There  is  another  example  of  continued  develop- 
ment of  powers  under  continued  exercise,  and 
that  is  that  of  milk-production  by  cows.  A  cow 
produces  a  certain  amount  of  milk  per  day  when 
she  has  her  first  calf,  a  larger  amount  when  she 


18  Process  of  Power  Changes 

has  her  second  calf,  a  still  larger  amount  when 

she  has  her  third  calf,  and  so  on.    We  can  see 

this  a  little  better  by  reference  to  a  table  which 

will  show  the  amount  of  milk  produced  by  cows 

of  different  ages. 

Holstein-Friesian  Milk  Production — Official  Tests  for 
Year  Ending  June  14,  1913. 
Ages  of  Cows                                  Av.  Milk  in  7  Days 
Under  2  years,  6  months 322.7  pounds 

2  years,  6  months,  to  3  years 348.8  pounds 

3  years  to  3  years,  6  months 400.3  pounds 

3  years,  6  months,  to  4  years 418.2  pounds 

4  years  to  4  years,  6  months 446.8  pounds 

4  years,  6  months,  to  5  years 459.2  pounds 

Over  5  years  (av.  7  years) 473.8  pounds 

There  were  5,961  cows  in  these  tests,  and  the 

average  milk  produced  by  them  was  3.4  pounds 
more  than  that  produced  by  other  cows  of  the 
same  ages  the  previous  year.  Considering  only 
the  473.8  pounds  produced  by  the  average  cow 
over  5  years  of  age,  this  is  19  pounds  more  than 
similar  cows  produced  seven  years  earlier.  At 
the  earlier  date  there  were  455  cows  over  five 
years  of  age  which  were  tested  officially  and  are 
recorded  in  volume  6  of  the  Blue  Book.  I  have 
analyzed  these  for  the  purpose  of  making  a  table 
which  will  show  what  happens  beyond  5  years  of 
age. 


Process  of  Power  Changes  19 

Cows  Over  5  Years  of  Age — Holstein-Friesian  Milk 

Production — Official    Tests    for    Year 

Ending  May  15,  1906. 

Ages  of  Cows  Av.  Milk  in  7  Days 

5  years  to     6  years 43375  pounds 

^  years  to     7  j'-ears 449.00  pounds 

7  years  to     8  years 449.51  pounds 

8  years  to     9  years 458.10  pounds 

9  years  to  10  years 468.71  pounds 

10  years  to  11  years 490.35  pounds 

11  years  and  over 446.33  pounds 

By  an  inspection  of  the  details  of  which  this 
table  is  composed,  and  by  making  another  table 
which  shows  the  same  cows  tested  in  successive 
years,  I  find  that  the  actual  increase  in  milk  pro- 
duction from  year  to  year  is  much  more  than  that 
given  in  the  above  table.  Also  I  find  that  actual 
increase  extends  up  to  twelve  years  of  age,  which 
is  as  far  as  these  records  reach  on  cows  tested 
two  years  in  succession. 

A  cow  may  not  be  full  grown  when  she  has 
her  first  calf,  but  she  does  not  continue  to  grow 
in  size  up  to  the  time  she  has  her  tenth  or  elev- 
enth calf.  Under  continued  exercise  which  is 
more  than  some  minimum  amount  per  unit  of 
time,  animal  powers  continue  to  develop  up  to 
some  unknown  point  near  the  end  of  life. 


20  Process  af  Power   Changes 

A  dope  fiend  suffers  no  inconvenience  when 
taking  a  dose  of  poison  great  enough  to  kill  sev- 
eral men.  He  does  not  survive  the  taking  of 
such  large  doses  because  he  was  born  with  more 
powers  than  other  persons.  He  does  so  because 
he  began  with  small  doses,  such  as  any  person 
might  take  and  survive,  and  then  gradually  in- 
creased the  size  of  the  doses  as  his  powers  were 
developed  by  the  exercise  of  fighting  such  poison. 

Calmette  and  Fraser  found  that  when  small 
doses  of  snake  venom,  insufficient  to  cause  death, 
are  injected  into  an  animal,  temporary  disturb- 
ance is  produced ;  but  after  a  few  days  the  ani- 
mal recovers,  and  a  larger  dose  is  required  to 
produce  any  symptoms.  By  gradually  increasing 
the  dose  the  animal  becomes  more  and  more  re- 
sistant, until  a  dose  fifty  times  as  great  as  would 
at  first  have  produced  immediate  death  can  be 
injected  without  doing  the  animal  any  harm. 

If  we  take  some  wild  plant  and  attempt  to  re- 
produce it  by  cuttings,  we  are  likely  to  find  that 
it  can  be  reproduced  that  way  only  with  difficulty. 
But  if  we  take  a  cutting  from  the  first  plant 
raised  that  way  we  find  the  second  time  it  grows 
a  little  more  readily.    If  we  take  a  cutting  from 


Process  of  Power  Changes  21 

the  second  plant  to  raise  a  third,  we  again  find 
that  it  starts  more  easily,  and  so  on  time  after 
time.  By  many  repetitions  the  plant  develops 
the  power  of  producing  roots  abundantly  from 
cuttings.  By  exercising  the  powers  which  it  has 
it  acquires  powers  which  it  did  not  have  before, 
and  which  never  existed  in  any  ancestor. 

There  is  no  selection  in  this  matter.  No  seeds 
are  produced.  The  final  plant  is  really  a  de- 
veloped section  of  the  original  plant,  but  has 
powers  which  the  original  plant  did  not  have.  A 
large  number  of  our  greenhouse  plants  are  now 
produced  by  cuttings,  but  originally  came  from 
stock  which  would  grow  that  way  only  with  dif- 
ficulty. 

Henslow  says  that  the  hypocotyl  of  a  seedling 
sunflower,  which  would  break  under  a  weight  of 
160  grams,  bore  a  weight  of  250  grams  after 
being  subjected  for  two  days  to  a  weight  of  150 
grams.  After  some  further  physical  training,  the 
weight  was  increased  to  400  grams  without  caus- 
ing injury.  Here  we  have  in  plants  something 
which  corresponds  exactly  to  the  development  of 
muscular  strength  by  muscular  exercise  in  ani- 
mals.   Similar  and  even  more  pronounced  results 


22  Process  of  Power  Changes 

have  been  found  in  the  leaf  stalks  of  black  helle- 
bore after  five  days  of  physical  training. 

The  Binet  system  is  used  to  measure  the  men- 
tal development  of  children.  To  measure  any- 
thing it  is  necessary  to  have  a  standard  for  com- 
parison. By  testing  a  good  many  children,  the 
Binet  system  establishes  a  certain  degree  of  men- 
tal development  as  representing  normal-minded- 
ness  for  a  five-year-old  child ;  a  higher  degree  of 
mental  development  as  representing  normal-mind- 
edness  for  a  six-year-old ;  a  still  higher  degree  of 
mental  development  as  representing  normal-mind- 
edness  for  a  seven-year-old;  and  so  on. 

The  Binet  system  does  not  extend  its  standards 
into  the  mature  years  of  adult  life  because  the 
tests  used  are  not  suitable  for  that  purpose,  but 
v;^e  can  reach  the  matter  in  another  way.  It  re- 
quires mental  power  to  learn  a  thing  and  re- 
member it  while  learning  a  second  thing.  It 
requires  more  mental  power  to  remember  two 
things  while  learning  a  third ;  more  yet  to  re- 
member three  things  while  learning  a  fourth; 
still  more  to  remember  four  things  while  learn- 
ing a  fifth;  and  so  on.  From  youth  to  old  age 
we  are  continually  learning  things,  and  we  carry 


Process  of  Power  Changes  23 

the  learned  things  in  our  memories  while  we 
learn  other  things.  These  learned  things  are  a 
load  which  requires  mental  power  to  carry,  and 
the  increasing  number  of  things  we  thus  carry 
is  a  measure  of  our  growing  mental  power. 

The  converse  of  the  gain  of  powers  by  exer- 
cise is  the  loss  of  powers  by  idleness, — the  term 
"idleness"  meaning  a  reduced  degree  of  activity 
and  not  a  total  cessation  of  action.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  gain  and  loss  are  two  operations  which 
go  on  simultaneously  in  the  body  of  each  individ- 
ual, but  for  simplicity  we  will  consider  them  sepa- 
rately. 

All  plants  raised  for  any  considerable  length 
of  time  by  division,  like  tubers,  bulbs,  cuttings, 
buds  or  grafts,  gain  the  power  to  produce  roots 
abundantly,  and  at  the  same  time  they  lose  the 
power,  sooner  or  later,  to  produce  seeds.  By  con- 
tinually exerting  themselves  along  particular  lines 
plants  develop  new  powers  along  those  lines,  and 
by  continued  idleness  along  other  lines  (seed 
production)  they  lose  the  power  they  originally 
had. 

Man  took  wild  plants,  and,  by  continually 
training  them,  developed  their  power  of  produc- 
ing the  things  he  wanted. 


24  Process  of  Power  Changes 

In  the  wild  state  these  plants  had  to  fight  for 
existence  in  a  world  covered  with  other  plants. 
When  man  domesticated  these  plants  he  protected 
them  from  weeds.  As  a  consequence  of  not  hav- 
ing to  fight  for  room  against  other  plants,  our 
domesticated  kinds  have  lost  the  power  of  sO' 
fighting,  and  are  unable  to  maintain  themselves 
when  deserted  by  man.  Idleness  along  that  line 
caused  a  loss  of  power  on  that  line.  There  is  no 
selection  in  this.  Man  did  not  select  plants  be- 
cause of  their  inability  to  protect  themselves. 

A  seed  is  an  inert  object,  but  it  contains  germ- 
plasm  and  has  the  power,  under  proper  circum- 
stances, of  developing  into  another  plant  like  that 
from  which  it  came.  At  least  it  has  that  power 
when  it  is  first  produced.  But  let  that  seed  lie 
idle  two,  three,  four  or  more  years,  and  that 
power  gradually  declines  and  finally  ceases  to 
exist.  The  germ-plasm  (the  physical  basis  of 
heredity)  is  still  there,  but  it  has  lost  its  power 
of  developing  into  a  new  plant  because  of  a  fail- 
ure to  exercise  that  power  for  a  considerable 
length  of  time.  The  loss  of  powers  by  reason 
of  a  failure  to  exercise  them  applies  to  the  germ- 
plasm  just  the  same  as  it  does  to  the  somatoplasm. 


Process  of  Power  Changes  25 

A  plant  which  is  continually  raised  from  cut- 
tings is  not  raised  from  seed,  and  consequently  is 
not  exercising  its  powers  of  growing  from  seeds. 
It  may  be  exercising  its  powers  of  producing 
seeds,  but  the  powers  of  producing  seeds  and 
the  power  of  growing  from  seeds  after  they  are 
produced  are  two  different  things.  Now  it  hap- 
pens that  all  plants  which  are  continually  repro- 
duced by  cuttings,  grafts,  tubers,  or  divisions  of 
any  kind,  and  not  by  seeds,  gradually  and  cer- 
tainly lose  their  power  of  producing  seeds  which 
will  germinate,  and  ultimately  lose  the  power  of 
producing  seeds  at  all.  The  germ-plasm  cannot 
retain  a  power  which  it  does  not  exercise,  and  it 
cannot  transmit  a  power  which  it  does  not  have. 

The  theory  of  the  continuity  of  the  germ-plasm 
is  one  of  those  fallacies  which  gains  a  wide  cur- 
rency because  of  a  lack  of  knowledge  of  the 
fundamental  characteristics  of  living  things.  It 
assumes  that  a  living  body  can  have  a  power 
which  it  never  has  exercised,  and  which  was 
never  exercised  by  any  ancestor  from  which  it 
was  derived.    Such  a  thing  is  utterly  impossible. 

Experiments  have  shown  that  when  smallpox 
virus  is  taken  from  a  human  patient  and  inocu- 


26  Process  of  Power  Changes 

lated  into  a  cow,  it  will  take  only  about  once  in 
ten  trials.  In  fact,  the  smallpox  germ  can  sur- 
vive in  the  cow  only  when  it  comes  to  some  cow 
which,  from  some  cause  or  other,  happens  to  be 
in  an  unusually  weak  condition  at  the  time.  But 
when  this  organism  has  once  succeeded  in  its 
fight  for  life  in  the  blood  reaction  of  a  weak 
cow,  it  has  built  up  its  powers  by  its  own  efforts 
in  fighting  that  kind  of  blood  reaction  and  then 
can  be  passed  along  to  and  can  live  in  a  cow  in 
whose  blood  it  would  have  died  if  inoculated 
there  in  the  first  instance.  Then  it  can  be  passed 
along  from  cow  to  cow  in  series,  and  each  time 
it  thus  passes  it  further  builds  up  its  powers  of 
fighting  the  blood  reaction  of  cows  by  exercising 
such  powers. 

While  the  smallpox  germ  is  thus  busy  develop- 
ing its  powers  of  fighting  the  blood  reaction  of 
cows,  it  is  not  fighting  the  blood  reaction  of  man, 
with  the  result  that  if  it  be  inoculated  into  a  man 
after  having  passed  through  a  series  of  ten  or 
twelve  cows,  it  is  found  to  be  cowpox  and  not 
smallpox.  It  has  lost  the  power  of  fighting  the 
blood  reaction  of  man  by  not  exercising  that 
power,  and  is  able  to  survive  only  a  short  time  in 


Process  or  Power  Changes  27 

that  blood  reaction.  And  a  man  who  is  vacci- 
nated builds  up  his  powers  of  resisting  smallpox 
by  beginning  his  exercise  on  a  weak  form  of  it, 
with  the  result  that  he  becomes  able  to  resist  fully 
virulent  smallpox  when  it  later  puts  in  an  appear- 
ance. But  after  he  is  vaccinated  he  ceases  to 
exercise  his  powers  of  fighting  smallpox  virus 
because  there  is  none  present  to  fight,  and  the 
result  is  that  these  powers  gradually  decline.  If 
he  is  to  continue  to  be  able  to  resist  smallpox  he 
must  again  exercise  the  powers  he  has  by  again 
being  vaccinated. 

Here  we  have  a  case  of  one  kind  of  power 
being  built  up  in  the  protoplasm  of  a  germ  by 
exercising  that  power,  and  simultaneously  another 
power  in  the  same  protoplasm  was  permitted  to 
decay  by  reason  of  a  failure  to  exercise  it.  Also, 
we  have  the  case  of  resisting  powers  being  built 
up  in  the  bodily  cells  of  the  man  by  exercising 
such  powers  as  he  had  at  the  time,  and  subse- 
quently the  decline  of  the  same  powers  in  the 
same  person  by  a  failure  to  exercise  them  for 
some  years. 

When  disease-producing  bacteria  are  raised  on 
some  artificial  food,  as  bouillon  or  agar,  they  do 


28  Process  of  Power  Changes 

not  have  to  fight  a  hostile  blood  reaction,  and  as 
a  consequence  they  gradually  lose  their  disease- 
producing  powers  by  failing  to  exercise  them. 
By  putting  such  weakened  bacteria  through  a 
course  of  training  in  which  they  are  forced  to 
use  these  powers  to  a  gradually  increasing  ex- 
tent, their  virulence  can  be  increased  to  something 
greater  than  it  was  when  they  were  first  placed 
upon  artificial  food.  These  facts  were  first  found 
by  Pasteur  in  working  on  the  anthrax  bacillus, 
and  have  since  been  found  by  other  persons  work- 
ing on  other  germs. 


CHAPTER  II. 

SOME  EMINENT  MEN. 

THE  modern  birth  control  doctrine  is  to 
produce  fewer  children  and  better  ones. 

Their  method  of  procedure  is  to  have  parents 
stop  producing  as  soon  as  they  have  two  or  three 
children  and  give  their  attention  strictly  to  the 
upbringing  of  those  two  or  three. 

If  that  practice  had  begun  back  in  the  Stone 
Age,  we  would  still  be  in  the  Stone  Age.  The 
"we"  of  that  statement  does  not  mean  the  readers 
of  this,  because  every  one  of  us  has  in  our  an- 
cestry a  good  many  persons  who  were  later  than 
the  tenth  child.  It  means  whatever  might  be 
alive  as  the  result  of  that  proceeding,  and  if  any- 
thing human  were  alive  they  would  be  in  the 
Stone  Age  because  advancement  comes  through 
children  produced  late  in  the  lives  of  their  par- 
ents, and  not  otherwise.  In  this  matter  let  us 
examine  a  few  persons  alphabetically. 


29 


30  Some  Eminent  Men 

Alfred  the  Great,  the  greatest  of  British  kings, 
was  the  fifth  and  youngest  son. 

Sir  Richard  Arkwright,  the  inventor,  was  the 
youngest  of  13  children  of  parents  too  poor  to 
give  him  an  education. 

"The  great  Arnauld,"  famous  French  theo- 
logian, was  the  youngest  of  20  children. 

Audubon,  America's  naturalist,  was  born  when 
his  father  was  57,  and  that  father  was  the  young- 
est of  20  children. 

Sir  Francis  Bacon,  one  of  the  most  profound 
of  intellects,  was  the  youngest  of  8  children. 

Sir  Charles  Bell,  famous  surgeon,  was  the 
youngest  of  6  children. 

Bismarck,  the  founder  of  the  German  Empire, 
was  the  youngest  surviving  son. 

Blackstone  of  law  fame  was  a  youngest  son. 

Robert  Boyle,  "the  great  Christian  philoso- 
pher," was  the  fourteenth  child. 

Elihu  Burritt,  ''the  learned  blacksmith,"  was 
the  youngest  of  ten  children. 

The  fact  that  mental  eminence  comes  from  the 
late  progeny  of  a  man  rather  than  from  the  early 
progeny  may  be  seen  in  the  Lee  family  of  Vir- 
ginia.   The  story  begins  with  Richard  Lee  (1646- 


Some  Eminent  Men  31 

1714),  who  was  certainly  a  younger  and  probably 
the  youngest  son  of  a  "numerous  household." 
He  had  five  sons,  the  last  two  of  whom  became 
the  progenitors  of  the  eminent  branches  of  the 
family.  One  of  these  was  Thomas  Lee  (1690- 
1750),  born  when  his  father  was  forty- four,  and 

the  other  was  Henry  Lee  (1691 ),  born  when 

his  father  was  forty-five. 

Like  his  father,  Thomas  Lee  had  five  sons,  the 
last  three  of  whom  were  the  eminent  members. 
One  of  these  was  Richard  Henry  Lee  (1732- 
1794),  who  was  born  when  his  father  was  forty- 
two  and  who  became  a  statesman  and  orator. 
Another  was  Francis  Lightfoot  Lee  (1734-1797), 
who  was  born  when  his  father  was  forty-four, 
and  who  was  one  of  the  signers  of  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence.  And  the  third  was  Arthur 
Lee  (1740-1792),  who  was  born  when  his  father 
was  fifty,  and  who  was  a  statesman  and  diplomat. 
These  men  all  have  places  in  the  Encyclopedia 
Britannica,  which  is  evidence  that  they  were  of 
more  than  ordinary  ability. 

From  Henry  Lee  (1691 — ),  son  of  the  orig- 
inal Richard,  the  eminent  line  continues  down 
through  his  youngest  son,  Henry,  bom  when  his 


32  Same  Eminent  Men 

father  was  thirty-eight,  his  grandson,  "Light 
Horse  Harry,"  and  his  youngest  great-grandson, 
Gen.  Robert  E.  Lee. 

What  is  presented  here  about  the  Lees  is  not 
family  gossip.  The  persons  named  are  not  sim- 
ply members  of  a  prominent  family.  They  are 
the  most  eminent  members  of  an  eminent  family, 
with  the  emphasis  in  the  superlative.  The  analy- 
sis shows  where  eminence  does  and  where  it 
does  not  arise  in  any  line  of  descent  from  com- 
mon ancestors.  Using  "eldest"  and  "youngest" 
in  a  generic  sense  to  indicate  early  and  late  off- 
spring from  the  parents,  we  may  say  that  im- 
provement comes  through  the  youngest  son  of 
the  youngest  son,  and  not  through  the  eldest  son 
of  the  eldest  son. 

Benjamin  Franklin  was  clearly  one  of  the  mas- 
ter intellects  of  the  world.  It  is  doubtful  if 
there  lived  at  the  same  time  another  intellect 
equally  great.  However  that  may  be,  it  is  cer- 
tain that  there  were  not  a  half  dozen  of  them. 
Franklin  tells  us  that  he  was  "the  youngest  son 
of  the  youngest  son  for  five  generations  back." 
Franklin  considered  that  as  merely  curious,  and 
others  since  then  have  thought  the  same  thing. 


Some  Eminent  Men  33 

But  "curious"  things  analyzed  lead  to  important 
truths.  When  there  are  many  in  a  family,  the 
"youngest"  is  the  offspring  of  old  parents.  It 
was  this  way  in  the  case  of  Franklin.  Ben  was 
born  when  his  father  was  51,  the  father  was  born 
when  the  grandfather  was  57,  and  the  grand- 
father was  born  when  the  great-grandfather  was 
in  the  neighborhood  of  70.  The  rest  of  the  male 
line  is  not  known,  but  Ben's  mother  was  born 
when  her  father  was  50.  Here  is  an  average  of 
57  instead  of  the  normal  average  of  32. 

Ben's  father  was  a  soap  boiler,  but  he  was  a 
learned  man.  He  was  a  studious,  self-taught 
man,  who  got  his  education  first  and  his  son  after- 
wards. The  father  of  Ben's  mother  was  a 
"learned  Englishman,"  who  got  his  education 
first  and  his  daughter  afterwards.  Both  of  these 
men  were  studious  men  in  the  strict  meaning  of 
that  term.  But  even  a  person  who  is  not  studious 
gets  an  education  by  mere  contact  with  his  fellow 
man.  The  person  who  is  old  when  his  child  is 
born  is  one  who  has  got  his  education  first  and 
his  offspring  afterwards. 

George  Washington  was  somewhat  above  the 
ordinary  run  of  men.    He  is  even  considered  to 


34  Some  Eminent  Men 

have  been  superior  to  the  prominent  men  of  his 
day.  He  was  born  when  his  father  was  38,  and 
the  next  three  generations  cover  99  years.  This 
is  an  average  of  a  little  over  34.  But  there  is  a 
suspicion  that  Washington's  greatness  came  from 
his  mother.  She  was  Mary  Ball,  born  when  her 
father  was  about  60  years  of  age.  There  is  a 
Ball  pedigree  extending  back  eight  generations, 
but  dates  are  not  given.  From  Mary's  birth  back 
to  the  estimated  birth  of  the  earliest  of  these 
Balls,  the  average  is  about  40  years. 

Henry  Ward  Beecher  was  perhaps  the  greatest 
preacher  of  the  nineteenth  century.  At  least,  he 
was  exceptionally  brilliant.  Henry  was  bom 
when  his  father  was  38,  and  that  father  was  a 
Yale  graduate  and  a  learned  man  who  got  his 
education  first  and  his  son  afterwards.  The 
father,  Lyman  Beecher,  was  born  when  his  father, 
David,  was  35  or  more  years  of  age.  And  David 
was  one  of  the  best  educated  persons  in  New 
England,  who  got  his  education  first  and  his  son 
afterwards.  Running  out  the  male  line  to  Isaac 
Beecher,  born  in  1620,  we  have  five  generations 
in  193  years.  In  the  other  parts  of  Beecher's 
pedigree  we  have  the  ages  of  seven  other  persons. 


Some  Eminent  Men  33 

The  average  for  the  entire  twelve  is  over  36. 
Among  the  other  persons  were  one  lawyer,  one 
colonel  and  one  general.  These  were  all  educated 
men  who  got  their  educations  first  and  their  off- 
spring afterwards. 

In  the  early  part  of  the  eighteenth  century 
there  was  a  poor  French  fisherman  with  a  large 
family.  Poor  fishermen  do  not  get  much  educa- 
tion in  the  ordinary  significance  of  that  term,  but 
the  work  of  fighting  storms  on  the  bay  of  Biscay 
and  providing  food  and  clothing  for  a  large  and 
growing  family  develops  mental  powers,  and  that 
is  the  kind  of  education  referred  to  here.  In 
1723  that  fisherman's  twentieth  child  was  born, 
and  it  is  very  certain  that  that  fisherman  had  ac- 
quired a  good  deal  of  education  before  that  twen- 
tieth child  was  conceived.  That  twentieth  child 
rose  to  be  an  admiral  in  the  French  navy,  a  fact 
which  indicates  that  he  inherited  mental  ability 
from  his  parents,  and  that  he  acquired  considera- 
ble education.  By  the  time  this  French  admiral 
had  got  education  to  the  extent  of  57  years  he 
became  the  father  of  a  child,  subsequently  known 
as  John  James  Audubon,  America's  greatest 
naturalist. 


36  Some  Eminent  Men 

Alexander  the  Great  needs  no  particular  in- 
troduction. He  was  the  son  of  Philip  of  Mace- 
don,  and  was  born  when  his  father  was  26.  But 
if  we  will  look  more  at  essentials  and  less  at  the 
spectacular  we  will  observe  that  Alexander  reaped 
where  Philip  had  sown,  and  that  Philip  was  the 
brains  back  of  Alexander's  achievements.  Philip 
was  born  when  his  father  Amyntas  II  was  about 
63,  and  Amyntas  was  born  about  90  years  after 
the  birth  of  his  grandfather,  Alexander  I.  In- 
cluding the  26  for  Alexander  the  Great,  the  aver- 
age is  nearly  45  for  four  generations. 

Men  of  unusual  ability  gravitated  to  Washing- 
ton during  the  war,  and  were  given  unusual 
authority.  Let  us  suppose  that  one  of  these  men 
should  be  superior  to  others,  and  be  given  more 
authority  than  that  given  to  any  one  else.  How 
much  superior  would  that  person  have  to  be  be- 
fore we  abolished  the  republic,  made  that  man 
an  emperor,  and  gave  him  the  honorary  title  of 
Augustus?  But  Octavius  changed  the  Roman 
Republic  into  an  Empire,  and  is  known  as  Au- 
gustus of  Rome.  He  was  born  in  63  B.  C.,  and 
his  great-grandfather  was  in  the  battle  of  Cannae, 
fought  in  216  B.  C.     The  least  we  can  figure 


Same  Eminent  Men  37 

gives  an  average  of  57  years  from  birth  of  father 
to  birth  of  son  for  three  generations  in  succes- 
sion. And  his  mother  was  the  youngest  sister  of 
Julius  Caesar. 

In  the  early  days  Rome  v^^as  controlled  solely 
by  the  patricians.  Little  by  little  the  plebeians 
gained  in  power  at  the  expense  of  the  patricians. 
The  most  prominent  member  of  the  most  illus- 
trious plebeian  family  of  the  Claudia  Gens  was 
Marcus  Claudius  Marcellus.  As  evidence  that 
we  are  not  referring  simply  to  an  ordinary  supe- 
rior person,  observe  that  double  superlative.  The 
average  for  seven  generations  in  the  male  line  to 
Marcellus  is  over  forty  years. 

The  Kembles  were  a  famous  family  of  actors 
and  actresses.  Recorded  history  begins  with  Roger 
Kemble,  born  in  1721,  who  was  an  actor  and  the 
father  of  eleven  children,  all  of  whom  were  more 
or  less  famous  in  theatricals.  The  famous  grand- 
children of  Roger  were  Fanny  Kemble,  and  Ade- 
laide, also  known  as  Mrs.  Sartoris.  Both  were 
authors  as  well  as  actors.  Now  these  famous 
granddaughters  did  not  come  from  Roger's  first 
child,  or  his  second  child,  or  his  third  child,  or 
his  fourth  child,  or  his  fifth  child,  or  his  sixth 


38  Some  Eminent  Men 

child.  They  came  from  his  eleventh  and  youngest 
child,  Charles  Kemble,  who  was  born  when  his 
father  was  fifty-four  years  of  age.  Evidently  the 
wife  of  Roger  did  not  practice  birth  control, 
otherwise  there  would  have  been  no  Fanny  Kem- 
ble, or  Mrs.  Sartoris.  Neither  would  Fanny  and 
Adelaide  have  existed  if  the  wife  of  Charles  had 
indulged  in  birth  control,  as  one  was  born  when 
her  father  was  thirty-six  and  the  other  when  he 
was  forty-five. 

It  has  been  the  fashion  for  some  time  to  say 
that  Lamarck  advanced  a  false  theory  of  evolu- 
tion. But  as  the  persons  who  say  that  have  not 
yet  succeeded  in  making  an  intelligent  statement 
of  what  Lamarck's  theory  is,  we  may  pass  their 
opinions  as  unworthy  of  consideration.  Lamarck 
was  born  when  his  father  was  forty-two  and 
the  next  two  previous  generations  cover  some- 
thing more  than  110  years.  This  is  an  average  of 
more  than  fifty  years  for  three  generations  in 
succession. 

William  Thomson,  afterwards  known  as  Lord 
Kelvin,  was  a  son  of  Prof.  James  Thomson,  and 
was  born  when  his  father  was  38.  And  James 
was  born  when  his  father  was  48.    This  is  a  total 


Some  Eminent  Men  39 

of  86  years  from  birth  of  grandfather  to  birth  of 
grandson.  This  may  not  appear  much,  but  if 
there  is  nothing  in  years  of  education  given  the 
father  and  grandfather  before  they  reproduce, 
then  it  should  be  possible  to  find  some  other  man 
as  good  as  Kelvin,  who  was  born  less  than  48 
years  after  the  birth  of  his  grandfather.    Try  it. 

Hereditary  kings  are  not  usually  of  much  im- 
portance from  the  intellectual  standpoint,  but 
Gustavus  Adolphus  of  Sweden  is  an  exception. 
He  was  born  98  years  after  the  birth  of  his 
grandfather,  Gustavus  Vasa.  In  ordinary  popu- 
lations, more  persons  are  born  within  44  years  of 
the  births  of  their  paternal  grandfathers  than  are 
born  98  or  more  years  after.  Normally,  heredi- 
tary kings  are  the  eldest  son  of  the  eldest  son, 
and  great  numbers  of  them  are  born  within  44 
years  of  the  births  of  their  grandfathers.  Just 
try  to  find  one  so  born  who  is  in  any  way  com- 
parable to  Gustavus  Adolphus  from  the  intellect- 
ual standpoint. 

In  other  contributions  I  have  shown  that 
Charles  Darwin  was  produced  by  an  ancestry 
which  accumulated',  in  a  few  previous  genera- 
tions, an  aggregate  of  more  than  fifty  years  of 


40  Same  Eminent  Men 

extra  education  before  reproducing.  But  Dar- 
win does  not  carry  off  all  of  the  glory.  Alfred 
Russell  Wallace  did  something.  Wallace  was 
bom  when  his  father  was  52,  and  the  father  was 
born  when  the  grandfather  was  46.  Here  is 
another  98  years  in  two  generations  to  match 
that  of  Gustavus  Adolphus.  What  man  born 
within  44  years  of  the  birth  of  his  grandfather 
is  the  equal  of  Wallace? 

John  and  Giarles  Wesley  were  the  founders 
of  Methodism.  There  can  be  no  doubt  about  the 
intellectual  superiority  of  these  men.  They  were 
the  sons  of  the  Rev.  Samuel  Wesley  who  was  40 
and  43  years  of  age  respectively  when  his  famous 
sons  were  born.  Now  it  is  quite  evident  that  the 
Rev.  Samuel  must  have  acquired  a  good  deal  of 
education  before  his  sons  were  conceived.  It 
also  happens  that  the  mother  of  John  and  Charles 
was  Susanna,  the  twenty-fifth  and  youngest  child 
of  Dr.  Samuel  Annesley,  a  vicar.  There  can  be 
no  doubt  but  Dr.  Sam  had  acquired  a  good  deal 
of  education  before  his  twenty-fifth  child  was 
conceived.  And  where  would  Methodism  be  if 
birth  control  had  got  in  its  deadly  work  in  the 
families  of  these  two  pious  Samuels? 


Some  Eminent  Men  41 

The  steam  engine  and  several  other  inventions 
of  a  high  order  are  due  to  a  Scotchman  by  the 
name  of  James  Watt.  James  was  born  when  his 
father  was  38,  and  the  father  was  born  when  the 
grandfather  was  56.  This  is  only  94  years  for 
two  generations,  but  only  one  person  in  122  is 
born  as  great  a  length  of  time  as  that  after  his 
grandfather.  And  the  grandfather  of  James 
Watt  was  a  teacher  of  mathematics,  a  fact  which 
shows  that  education  before  reproduction  was  not 
only  long  continued  but  was  intense  as  compared 
to  what  exists  in  the  general  population. 

Some  of  these  persons  who  do  not  like  to  have 
facts  of  this  kind  presented  to  the  public  may 
come  along  and  say  that  Confucius  was  his  fath- 
er's eldest  son.  Quite  true.  All  of  the  other 
children  were  girls,  and  the  father  was  71  when 
the  famous  son  was  born.  Also,  the  father  was 
a  learned  man  and  a  chief  magistrate.  Also, 
the  mother  was  the  youngest  daughter  of  an- 
other learned  magistrate. 

Or,  the  objector  may  say  that  Cuvier,  the 
French  naturalist,  was  an  intellect  of  the  first 
order,  and  was  his  father's  eldest  child.  Correct 
again.     But  it  happens  that  the  father  was  a 


42  Some  Eminent  Men 

younger  son,  was  trained  as  a  military  officer,  and 
did  not  get  married  until  he  was  fifty  years  of 
age.  Intense  education  long  continued  led  to  the 
production  of  this  remarkable  Frenchman. 

In  the  same  year  that  Cuvier  was  bom,  Alex- 
ander Von  Humboldt  was  born,  and  no  one  can 
say  that  there  was  any  lack  of  intellect  in  Hum- 
boldt. As  in  the  case  of  Cuvier,  Humboldt  was 
the  son  of  a  military  officer,  and  this  officer  was 
49  when  Alexander  was  bom.  Just  as  many 
children  are  bom  to  fathers  22  and  under,  as  are 
bom  to  fathers  50  and  over.  It  will  be  interest- 
ing if  someone  will  find  some  Cuvier  or  Hum- 
boldt born  to  a  father  22  or  less. 

The  same  year  that  produced  Cuvier  and  Hum- 
boldt also  produced  Napoleon  Bonaparte,  born 
when  his  father  Carlo  Bonaparte  was  23  years 
of  age.  Does  the  reader  think  that  I  have  met 
my  own  suggestion  ?  That  will  depend  upon  the 
meaning  applied  to  human  superiority.  Napoleon 
was  doubtless  far  more  famous  than  either  Cuv- 
ier or  Humboldt,  but  how  about  intellectual  su- 
periority as  distinguished  from  mere  fame  ?  Does 
anyone  think  that  in  the  realm  of  pure  intellect 
Napoleon  was  the  equal  of  either  Cuvier  or  Hum- 


Some  Eminent  Men  43 

boldt?  Probably  not.  In  his  life-time,  Humboldt 
was  recognized  as  an  authority  on  every  known 
science,  and  he  was  the  last  man  to  be  so  rec- 
ognized. At  the  present  time,  the  sciences  are 
too  numerous  and  comprehensive  for  even  the 
mind  of  a  Humboldt. 

In  the  field  of  science  it  is  doubtful  if  it  is  pos- 
sible to  name  any  persons  superior  to  Cuvier  or 
Humboldt,  and  it  is  doubtful  if  anyone  can  say 
either  of  these  men  was  superior  to  the  other. 
But  as  a  military  chieftain  and  conqueror,  com- 
pare Napoleon  with  Genghis  Khan,  who  lived  six 
hundred  years  earlier,  and  Napoleon  shrinks  to 
small  potatoes.  Napoleon  tried  literature  but  was 
unable  to  produce  anything  of  value  in  that  line. 
As  a  chess  player  he  was  inferior  to  several  of  his 
generals.  He  was  a  brilliant  commander  of 
small  armies,  but  that  is  practically  all.  There  is 
nothing  to  indicate  that  he  was  a  master  in  hand- 
ling armies  of  more  than  one  hundred  thousand;. 
There  is  every  reason  to  think  that  he  would  be 
wholly  incompetent  to  handle  such  vast  armies 
as  those  recently  fighting  in  Europe. 

The  pedigree  of  Napoleon  stops  with  his  par- 
ents.    We  have  no  information  about  either  set 


44  Some  Eminent  Men 

of  grandparents.  If  Napoleon  was  bom  a  short 
time  after  the  births  of  his  grandparents,  then 
some  of  his  numerous  biographers  should  have 
found  and  given  us  the  facts  about  those  grand- 
parents. The  fact  that  no  biographer  has  told  us 
about  those  grandparents  indicates  that  they  were 
so  far  in  the  past  that,  when  the  biographers  got 
busy,  there  were  no  living  persons  who  knew 
those  grandparents  and  could  tell  about  them. 
The  difficulty  in  finding  records  increases  with 
their  distance  in  the  past,  and  one  reason  why  we 
know  so  little  about  the  ancestors  of  eminent  men 
is  due  to  the  fact  that  they  are  the  final  product  of 
old  parentage  repeated  two  or  three  or  more  gen- 
erations in  succession. 

Biographers  can  rarely  tell  us  about  the  grand- 
parents of  eminent  men.  Compare  that  fact  with 
the  fact  that  investigators  have  no  great  difficulty 
in  tracing  the  Jukes,  the  Ishmaels,  the  Kallikaks, 
and  other  inferior  families  for  three,  four,  five 
or  six  generations.  The  difference  is  due  to  the 
fact  that  in  one  case  the  generations  are  far  apart 
and  in  the  other  case  they  are  near  together. 


CHAPTER   III. 

THE  AGE  OF  PARENTS. 

IN  what  has  gone  before  we  h^ve  cited  a  num- 
ber of  eminent  men  as  the  product  of  slow- 
ly moving  generations.  Citing  instances  is  often 
persuasive,  but  it  is  hardly  conclusive.  What  we 
want  is  some  kind  of  evidence  that  it  is  not  pos- 
sible to  find  contrary  cases  to  offset  the  cases 
given.  This  we  can  do  by  the  establishment  of 
standards  and  the  use  of  statistics. 

When  we  speak  of  slowly  moving  generations 
we  refer  not  only  to  the  ages  of  the  fathers  when 
the  eminent  sons  were  produced,  but  to  the  ages 
of  the  grandfathers  when  the  parents  were  pro- 
duced, and  the  ages  of  the  great-grandfathers 
when  the  grandparents  were  produced.  We  also 
refer  to  the  mothers,  and  grandmothers,  and 
great-grandfathers,  but  unfortunatey  our  human 
records  do  not  give  these  facts,  and  we  have  to 
use  what  we  can  find. 

Practically  every  pedigree  extended  for  three 
or  four  generations  has  in  it  some  young  parents 

45 


46  The  Age  of  Parents 

and  some  old  parents.  A  pedigree  extended 
that  far  and  composed  of  all  old  parents  or  all 
young  parents  is  very  rare.  The  terms  "old"  and 
"young"  as  here  used  is  somewhat  vague,  but 
means  a  few  years  more  or  a  few  years  less  than 
the  average.  The  average  in  the  white  race  is 
about  32  for  fathers  when  children  are  bom.  If 
we  take  five  years  above  and  below  this  as  repre- 
senting old  and  young,  we  may  then  say  that  it 
IS  rare  to  find  a  pedigpree  in  which  all  males  in 
three  or  four  generations  are  either  above  37  or 
below  27  when  the  next  generation  is  produced. 

The  first  step  in  this  proceeding  is  to  find  the 
normal  distribution  of  births  in  normal  pedigrees 
in  a  normal  community,  and  then  compare  that 
with  what  is  found  in  the  pedigrees  of  intellect- 
ually eminent  men.  The  normal  distribution  was 
determined  by  tabulating  births  as  they  occurred 
in  the  18th  century  in  New  England,  and  as  they 
are  recorded  in  family  genealogy.  The  table  for 
that  is  our  standard  for  comparison. 

In  the  cyclopedias  were  found  571  eminent 
men  in  whose  pedigrees  it  was  possible  to  get 
dates  of  births  for  one  or  more  ancestors  in 
each  pedigree.     A  tabulation  of  the  distribution 


The  Age  of  Parents  47 

of  births  in  the  pedigrees  furnished  the  material 
to  be  measured  by  normal  distribution  as  a 
standard.  The  results  are  given  in  the  follow- 
ing table: 

Percentages  of  Births  to  Fathers  of  Different  Ages. 

In  Pedigrees  Relative 

Age  of      In  Normal  of  Emi-  Value  of 

Fathers     Pedigrees  nent  Men  Father  Age 

24  and  under    9.06  1.63  1.000 

25  to  29 23.05  9.77  2.356 

30  to  34 26.00  16.63  3.557 

35  to  39 19.67  19.19  5.426 

40  to  44 13.39  20.23  8.406 

45  to  49 5.50  14.53  14.670 

50  to  54 2.22  10.12  25.328 

55  to  59 0.72  4.30  33.138 

60  and  over.     0.39  3.60  51.562 

100.00  100.00 

This  table  shows  that  normally  more  than  9 
per  cent  of  all  children  are  born  when  their 
fathers  are  less  than  25  years  of  age,  but  that 
in  the  pedigrees  of  eminent  men  less  than  2  per 
cent  are  the  offspring  of  such  young  fathers. 
Normally  more  than  23  per  cent  of  children  are 
born  after  the  fathers  are  25  and  before  they  are 
30,  but  in  pedigrees  of  eminent  men  less  than 
10  per  cent  are  the  offspring  of  such  young 
fathers.     Continuing  the  comparison,  it  is  seen 


48 


The  Age  of  Parents 


that  eminent  men  are  not  produced  in  the  same 
manner  that  ordinary  people  are  produced. 

The  last  column  is  calculated  from  the  other 
two  in  a  well-known  manner.  It  shows  to  what 
extent  added  age  in  the  father  helps  to  give  the 
son  a  good  mental  inheritance.  Putting  that  last 
column  into  the  form  of  a  diagram  we  have  what 
is  shown  in  Fig.  1. 


£ 


^ 


giftTM 

t 

CHANJCESC 
o        IS       e 

)F  BECOMIN 

G  EMINENT 

n      A^       so 

■  1^ 

■  2 

35 

3^5 
543 

S4f 

1457 

JJ4 

^4' 

25-29 

30-34 
35-39 
40-44 
45-49 
30-54 
55^9 

HUH 

'             '            '  ^^^^H 

I2S32 

'"■'■r i"'""f" ■r"t'""7"™    1    1    i5,.?«i 

Fig.    1.      Relative    chances   of   becoming    eminent,    as 

measured  by  age  of  father  at  birth  of  son. 

From  "Great  Men,"  by  Redfleld. 

The  preceding  table  gives  the  distribution  of 
births  as  they  occurred  two  hundred  years  ago. 
In  recent  years  there  has  been  a  decline  of  births, 
which  has  been  ascribed  to  birth  control.  For 
the  purpose  of  determining  just  what  was  hap- 
pening, a  similar  tabulation  was  made  from  the 
birth  registry  in  Chicago  for  the  year  1913.  The 


The  Age  of  Parents  49 

result  is  shown  in  the  following  table,  in  whicK 
all  three  tabulations  appear: 

Percentage  of  Births  to  Fathers  of  Different  Ages. 

In  Pedigrees 
of  Eminant 

Ages  of  Fathers  Men  Normal  In  Chicago 

24  and  under 1.63  9.06  15.83 

25  to  29 9.77  23.05  31.20 

30  to  34 16.63  26.00  24.67 

35  to  39 19.19  19.67  15.30 

40  to  44 20.23  13.39  8.06 

45  to  49 14.53  5.50  3.55 

50  and  over 18.02  3.33  1.39 

Is  it  really  necessary  to  comment  on  that 
table?  Is  it  not  perfectly  plain  that  birth  con- 
trol as  it  is  being  practiced  in  Chicago  is  carry- 
ing the  race  backward? 

It  is  recognized  that  from  powerful-minded 
parents  we  get  powerful-minded  offspring,  and 
from  feeble-minded  parents  we  get  feeble-minded 
offspring.  It  was  shown  before  that  mental 
power  in  human  beings  continues  to  develop 
from  youth  to  old  age.  Hence,  the  same  normal- 
minded  person  may  be  relatively  feeble-minded 
as  a  parent  in  early  life,  and  relatively  power- 
ful-minded in  later  life.  We  have  examined  pow- 
erful-minded persons  and  have  found  that  they 


50  The  Age  of  Parents 

came  from  the  late  lives  of  their  parents.    Let  us 
look  at  the  other  side  of  the  picture. 

During  the  Revolutionary  War  a  twenty-year- 
old  boy,  now  known  under  the  fictitious  name 
of  Martin  Kallikak,  Sr.,  came  into  contact  with 
a  young  girl  of  unstated  age.  The  result  was 
an  illegitimate  son,  now  known  as  Martin  Kalli- 
kak, Jr.  As  Martin,  Sr.,  and  the  girl  were  both 
much  below  what  is  normal-mindedness  for  the 
standard  parent,  it  will  be  seen  that  Martin,  Jr., 
was  by  two  feeble-minded  parents.  As  we  get 
only  feeble-minded  children  from  feeble-minded 
parents,  Martin,  Jr.,  was  born  feeble-minded  and 
became  the  founded  of  a  feeble-minded  family. 

Martin,  Jr.,  started  life  with  some  degree  of 
feeble-minded  handicap,  but  even  a  feeble- 
minded person  can  develop  to  some  extent  as  the 
years  go  by.  We  may  suppose  that  Martin,  Jr., 
could  reach  or  nearly  reach  the  standard  for  a 
thirty-year-old,  even  if  he  did  not  arrive  at  that 
point  until  he  was  fifty  years  old.  Martin,  Jr., 
had  several  sons,  the  eldest  of  whom  was  bom 
when  his  father  was  far  below  the  thirty-year 
standard.  He  was  below  that  standard  partly 
because  of  his  inheritance,  partly  because  of  lack 


The  Age  of  Parents  51 

of  schooling,  and  partly  because  of  lack  of  years 
when  the  eldest  son  was  bom.  The  eldest  son  is 
said  to  have  been  feeble-minded,  and  the  head 
of  the  principal  feeble-minded  branch  of  the 
Kallikak  family. 

The  second  son,  born  after  Martin,  Jr.,  had 
come  nearer  to  the  thirty-year  standard,  was 
also  feeble-minded,  but  to  a  less  extent.  Some 
branches  of  his  descendants  are  said  to  have  been 
normal-minded  or  doubtful.  The  third  son,  born 
after  Martin,  Jr.,  was  still  nearer  the  thirty-year 
standard,  is  said  to  have  been  normal.  Martin, 
Jr.,  also  had  several  daughters.  The  earlier  ones 
were  all  feeble-minded,  but  the  last  two  are  said 
to  have  been  normal.  The  parents  had  acquired 
mental  development  between  the  births  of  their 
first  and  last  children. 

Let  us  return  to  the  history  of  Martin,  Sr. 
About  ten  years  after  the  contretemps  which 
resulted  in  the  feeble-minded  Martin,  Jr.,  Mar- 
tin, Sr.,  married  a  girl  of  good  family  and  one 
who  had  a  good  or  fair  education.  At  this  time 
Martin,  Sr.,  was  nearly  thirty  years  of  age,  and 
was  much  nearer  to  what  is  normal-mindedness 
for  average  parents  when  the  average  child  is 


52  The  Age  of  Parents 

born.    He  had  several  children  by  this  marriage, 
all  of  whom  are  said  to  have  been  normal. 

Martin,  Sr.,  was  a  feeble-minded  parent  when 
Martin,  Jr.,  was  conceived,  but  was  substantially 
normal-minded  when  his  other  children  were  con- 
ceived.    We  have   feeble-minded  stock  coming 
from  the  first  union,  and  normal-minded  stock 
from  the  second.     Of  course,  some  of  the  dif-' 
ference  was  due  to  the  individuality  of  the  moth- 
ers, but  the  first  one  was  feeble-minded  for  the 
same  reason  that  her  partner  was,  and  the  sec- 
ond was  normal-minded  for  the  same  reason  that 
Martin,   Sr.,  became  normal-minded  at  a  later 
date. 

"The  Ishmaels''  is  a  named  used  to  designate  a 
group  of  degenerate  families  which  are  located 
in  and  near  Indianapolis,  and  which  came  mostly 
from  Kentucky,  Tennessee  and  North  Carolina 
nearly  a  hundred  years  ago.  In  a  statement  made 
about  thirty  years  ago,  McCullock  catalogs  1,750 
criminals,  paupers  and  prostitutes  among  them, 
fifty-seven  of  whom  were  in  the  sixth  genera- 
tion from  the  original  importation.  McCullock 
states  that  he  personally  knew  three  generations 
of  beggars  among  them.    His  descriptions  make 


The  Age  of  Parents  53 

the  average  parents,  generation  after  generation, 
less  than  twenty  years  of  age. 

Another  famous  group  of  degenerates  is 
known  as  "The  Jukes."  The  story  begins  with 
a  girl  known  as  "Margaret,  the  mother  of  crimi- 
nals." She  was  an  eldest  child,  born  when  her 
parents  were  quite  young,  though  their  ages  are 
not  given.  In  1784,  while  Margaret  was  in  her 
teens,  she  had  an  illegitimate  son.  In  turn,  this 
illegitimate  son  became  a  father  at  the  age  of 
fifteen,  and  the  son  of  this  fifteen-year-old  father 
became  the  founder  of  one  of  the  worst  branches 
of  the  Jukes  family.  Observe  the  three  suc- 
cessive generations  of  unusually  young  parents, 
one  of  which  was  a  male  only  fifteen  years  old 
when  his  son  was  born. 

The  records  of  the  Jukes  show  that  one  girl 
became  a  mother  at  the  age  of  twelve,  and  sev- 
eral others  at  thirteen  and  fourteen.  One  boy 
contracted  syphilis  at  the  age  of  thirteen.  He 
was  bom  only  thirty-six  years  after  the  birth  of 
his  paternal  grandfather. 

Remembering  that  the  different  races  and  tribes 
of  men  freely  interbreed,  and  consequently  are 
biologically    close   cousins,   and   that   apes   and 


54  The  Age  of  Parents 

other  animals  are  somewhat  more  distant  cousins, 
it  will  help  some  to  make  a  table  which  will 
represent,  approximately,  the  length  of  time 
elapsing  from  generation  to  generation  in  the 
male  line. 

APPROIX.MATE  Average  Age  at  Reproduction 

Rabbits    1  year 

Cattle    ,  4  years 

Horses    10  years 

Apes    . ., 16  years 

Digger  Indians   21  years 

Eskimos 23  years 

Polynesians    26  years 

Chinese  , 29  years 

Chicago   in    1913 .31  years 

New  England  in  18th  Century 33  years 

Fathers  of  571  Eminent  Men   ). , .  .40  years 

Fathers  of  10  Extraordinary  Men 58  years 

It  will  be  worth  the  reader's  while  to  study 
that  table,  and  to  take  notice  of  the  fact  that  it 
might  have  been  very  much  extended  by  includ- 
ing within  it  many  other  tribes  and  races  of 
men,  and  many  other  lower  animals,  with  re- 
gard to  which  we  have  fairly  reliable  informa- 


The  Age  of  Parents  5  5 

tion.  What  is  given,  however,  is  sufficiently  com- 
prehensive to  make  it  evident  that  the  advance  of 
many  animals  in  the  scale  of  evolution  is  quite 
accurately  represented  by  the  length  of  time 
elapsing  from  one  generation  to  the  next. 

Due  consideration  of  the  table  will  make  it 
evident  that  selection  has  nothing  to  do  with 
bringing  about  the  kind  of  improvements  which 
distinguish  the  higher  animals  from  the  lower 
ones,  and  consequently  nothing  to  do  with  the 
improvement  of  the  human  race.  To  have  se- 
lection, a  pair  of  parents  must  produce  more 
than  a  pair  of  offspring,  and  the  greater  the  num- 
ber of  offspring,  the  more  the  opportunity  for 
selection  to  get  in  its  deadly  work.  Also,  the 
more  frequently  the  generations  follow  each 
other,  the  more  is  the  selection.  Lengthening  the 
time  between  generations  cuts  out  selection  and 
its  opportunities  for  accomplishing  anything. 
Looking  at  that  table  it  is  seen  that  we  get  im- 
provement by  a  process  which  necessarily  results 
in  eliminating  selection.  If  selection  had  any- 
thing to  do  with  the  matter,  then  rabbits  should 
very  quickly  overtake  and  pass  human  beings. 


y 

CHAPTER  IV. 

FROM  SAVAGERY  TO  CIVILIZATION. 

IN   the  early   stages   of    social   organization, 
men  became   divided   into  tribes.     A  vast 

number  of  tribes  have  existed  at  one  time  or 
another.  A  few  of  those  tribes  have  advanced 
from  savagery  to  civilization  and  have  become 
organized  into  nations ;  others  still  remain  as 
tribes  at  the  present  time;  while  the  remainder, 
and  by  far  the  larger  number,  have  become  ex- 
tinct. As  examples  of  extinction  it  is  only 
necessary  to  mention  the  disappearance  of 
Indian  tribes  in  North  America,  and  the  dis- 
appearance of  other  tribes  in  other  parts  of  the 
world  invaded  by  the  white  man.  But  the 
white  man  is  not  the  sole  cause  of  tribes  be- 
coming extinct.  Neighboring  tribes  frequently 
exterminate  each  other  by  warfare,  the  stronger 
killing  off  the  weaker.  In  South  America, 
Humboldt  saw  a  parrot  which  was  the  sole 
living  thing  capable  of  speaking  the  language 
of  an  extinct  tribe. 

56 


Fram  Savagery  to  Civilizatian  57 

Travelers  have  found  among  surviving  tribes 
of  savages  many  bizarre  customs.  Many  explana- 
tions have  been  offered  as  to  the  origin,  mean- 
ing and  usefulness  of  these  customs  to  the  tribes 
practicing  them,  but  we  are  not  here  concerned 
with  the  origin  of  any  particular  custom.  We 
may  simply  assume  that  each  custom  arose  from 
some  particular  circumstance  without  troubhng 
ourselves  to  inquire  what  those  circumstances 
were.  If  a  custom  adopted  for  any  reason  what- 
ever proved  advantageous  to  the  tribe  in  its  strug- 
gle with  other  tribes  we  may  assume  that  the 
tribe  adopting  the  custom  would  be  likely  to  sur- 
vive. If  a  custom  adopted  proved  disadvan- 
tageous, the  tribe  adopting  it  would  become  more 
than  ordinarily  liable  to  extinction.  Hence,  we 
may  assume  that  those  customs  which  we  now 
find  widely  prevalent  among  surviving  tribes  are, 
in  some  way,  advantageous  to  the  welfare  of 
the  tribes  adopting  them. 

One  of  the  widely  prevalent  customs  among 
savages  is  that  of  "exogamy,"  a  term  proposed 
by  McLennan  for  the  custom  of  compelling  mar- 
riage out  of  the  tribe.  It  is  the  converse  of 
"endogamy,"  which  is  the  practice  of  compelling 


58         From  Savagery  to  Civilization 

marriage  within  the  tribe  or  community.  Endo- 
gamy was  probably  a  very  early  custom,  but  is 
now  found  only  among  very  low  races,  and  those 
protected  by  their  locations.  Exogamy  is  widely 
prevalent  among  surviving  tribes,  and  those  which 
appear  to  be  advancing.  We  may  therefore  as- 
sume that  there  is  something  about  exogamy 
which  makes  it  more  advantageous  than  endo- 
gamy. The  most  common  explanation  of  this 
advantage  is  that  it  prevents  in-breeding,  a  prac- 
tice which  is  said;  to  be  injurious.  The  practice 
of  exogamy  is  supposed  to  be  the  forerunner  of 
our  customs  and  laws  which  prohibit  the  mar- 
riage of  close  relatives. 

There  is  another  reason  why  exogamy  is  more 
advantageous  to  a  savage  tribe  that  endogamy. 
When  the  wife  is  to  be  had  within  the  tribe,  she 
is  convenient,  and  any  ten-year-old  boy  can  get 
one  when  he  wants  her  without  the  least  trouble 
or  effort.  When  the  wife  must  be  "captured" 
from  some  other  tribe  the  case  is  different.  She 
is  not  so  convenient  and  cannot  be  had  so  soon. 
Furthermore,  he  is  put  to  considerable  trouble 
to  get  her,  and  has  to  do  a  good  deal  of  extra 
work  and  planning  before  he  accomplishes  that 


From  Savagery  to  Civilizatioii         59 

result.  Exogamy  is  one  of  the  many  ways  em- 
ployed by  different  races  to  interfere  with  early 
reproduction  and  to  compel  the  would-be  hus- 
band to  do  an  extra  amount  of  work  before  he 
can  have  his  mate. 

Races  of  men  have  risen  from  savagery  to 
civilization  by  interfering  with  the  mating  in- 
stincts of  the  young  in  such  a  way  as  to  post- 
pone the  actual  age  at  which  production  begins, 
and  by  the  introduction  of  customs  which  com- 
pelled an  extra  amount  of  physical  and  mental 
effort  to  be  expended  before  reproducing.  When- 
ever such  customs  were  introduced  and  main- 
tained, the  tribe  introducing  them  rose,  genera- 
tion by  generation,  to  a  higher  level  of  intelli- 
gence. Whenever  a  tribe  failed  to  introduce  some 
customs  having  these  general  results,  that  tribe 
fell  by  the  wayside  unless  it  was  protected  by 
isolation  from  competition  with  other  tribes. 

Exogamy  represents  one  of  these  methods  of 
interfering  with  early  mating.  The  custom  of 
purchasing  brides  is  another  form  of  interfer- 
ence. The  young  man  who  must  purchase  his 
wife  must  first  spend  some  time  acquiring  the 
purchase  price,  and  the  effort  to  get  the  price 


60         From  Savagery  to  Civilization 

would  not  normally  begin  until  the  desire  for  a 
bride  became  urgent. 

The  introduction  of  elaborate  marriage  cere- 
monies is  a  method  of  compelling  the  members 
of  the  tribe  or  clan  to  do  a  considerable  quantity 
of  work,  mental  and  physical,  more  than  is  neces- 
sary for  meeting  the  requirements  of  mere  ex- 
istence. Customs  of  display,  and  religious  cus- 
toms of  all  kinds  are  other  means  for  causing  the 
members  of  the  community  to  do  extra  work. 
Warfare,  and  the  feasts  and  celebrations  asso- 
ciated with  warfare,  are  still  other  devices  for 
causing  extra  work. 

There  are  many  tribes  of  savages,  semi-sav- 
ages and  barbarous  people  in  the  world  today. 
Those  people  have  a  great  variety  of  customs, 
many  of  which  have  been  declared  to  be  absurd 
and  ridiculous  by  civilized  people.  When  we  re- 
view these  numerous  tribes  and  their  customs, 
one  by  one,  we  find  one  general  result.  The  low- 
est tribes  are  those  which  interfere  with  natural 
reproduction  the  least,  and  the  highest  are  those 
which  interfere  the  most.  Going  over  the  scale 
as  a  whole,  it  is  found  that  the  advancement  of 
any  tribe  is  an  accurate  reflection  of  the  average 


From  Savagery  to  Civilization  61 

amount  of  work  that  the  members  of  the  tribe 
perform  before  the  average  child  is  born.  When 
we  review  historical  cases  of  tribes  suddenly  ad- 
vancing in  civilization  we  find  that  such  advance- 
ment followed  immediately  upon  the  introduction 
of  some  custom  which  delayed  marriage  and 
caused  extra  work. 

In  looking  over  the  centers  of  civilization  we 
find  them  beginning  in  semi-tropical  countries 
and  then  gradually  moving  northward.  After 
Egypt  and  Babylonia  came  Greece,  a  little  fur- 
ther to  the  north.  Next  the  center  of  civilization 
moved  to  Rome,  slightly  further  north.  From  the 
time  of  the  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire  to  the 
present  there  have  been  many  shifts,  but  gradu- 
ally the  center  of  civilization  and  power  has 
moved  northward  until  now  we  may  say  that 
it  runs  along  northern  Germany  and  France, 
England  and  the  northern  part  of  the  United 
States.  There  is,  of  course,  no  definite  center 
of  civilization  at  the  present  time,  but  we  all 
recognize  the  fact  that  the  principal  part  of  hu- 
man progress  occurs  in  sections  which  are  well 
to  the  northward  of  Greece  and  Rome. 


62         From  Savagery  to  Civilization 

When  we  look  at  individual  wars  we  find  that 
the  tribe  or  nation  whose  habitat  is  further  to 
the  north  normally  defeats  the  tribe  or  nation 
whose  home  is  further  to  the  south.  Looking 
closer,  we  find  that  the  victor,  when  other  things 
are  equal,  is  the  people  who  live  in  the  colder 
climate,  and  the  defeated  is  the  people  who  live 
in  the  warmer  climate. 

From  a  consideration  of  the  various  facts  in- 
volved, we  may  say  that  a  cool  or  semi-cold 
climate  promotes  the  development  of  intelligence 
and  bodily  vigor  in  those  peoples  who  live  in 
such  climates.  Amateurs  coming  upon  this  fact 
would  normally  give  this  out  as  the  latest  de- 
termination of  science,  whereas  it  is  not  science 
at  all.  It  is  only  an  item  with  which  science  may 
deal.  The  matter  comes  into  the  domain  of 
science  only  when  we  can  explain  that  fact  in 
the  terms  of  some  other  facts  of  a  known  kind. 
Human  advancement  has  moved  northward 
step  by  step  and  at  the  present  time  the  most 
vigorous  and  intelligent  people  are  those  who 
live  in  comparatively  cold  climates,  and  whose 
ancestors  lived  in  the  same  kind  of  climate  for 
many  generations.     Why? 


From  Savagery  to  Civilization  63 

Man  needs  a  habitation  of  some  kind.  In  a 
warm  climate  a  tent  or  cheaply  constructed  hut 
or  house  serves  every  purpose.  In  a  cold  climate 
a  man  must,  or  usually  does,  build  a  more  sub- 
stantial house  to  protect  himself  in  winter.  This 
more  substantial  house  requires  more  mental  ef- 
fort in  planning  and  more  physical  labor  to 
construct. 

In  a  warm  climate  man  needs  fuel  only  for 
cooking  purposes.  In  a  cold  climate  a  man  must 
provide  fuel  to  warm  his  house  in  winter,  and 
that  requires  extra  effort  on  his  part.  In  a 
warm  climate  a  man  needs  but  little  clothing. 
In  a  cold  climate  a  man  must  provide  extra 
clothing  for  winter  protection,  and  providing  this 
extra  clothing  demands  extra  labor.  And  so  on 
for  many  things.  The  people  who  live  in  cold 
climates  must  and  do  exert  themselves  mentally 
and  physically  to  a  much  greater  extent  than  do 
those  people  who  live  in  warm  climates. 

When  a  man  goes  into  a  gymnasium  and 
swings  Indian  clubs  and  dumb  bells,  he  exercises 
certain  muscles,  and  those  muscles  gain  strength 
as  a  result  of  the  exercise.  The  fact  that  mus- 
cles gain  in  strength  as  the  result  of  exercise  is 


64         From  Savagery  to  Civilization 

well  known  and  is  used  by  athletes  in  preparing 
for  physical  contests.  It  is  also  used  by  govern- 
ments in  preparing  soldiers  for  war.  And  it  is 
used  by  drivers  in  training  trotters  for  racing. 
In  this  last  case  we  have  definite  records  which 
show  continued  development  of  muscular 
strength  for  many  years  in  succession. 

As  a  result  of  various  investigations  it  is 
learned  that  the  offspring  inherits  that  particular 
muscular  or  mental  development  which  existed 
in  the  parents  at  the  time  the  offspring  was  con- 
ceived. For  muscular  development  this  has  been 
traced  very  accurately  in  the  trotting  horse  for 
a  period  of  about  one  hundred  years.  In  im- 
proving lines  among  these  animals,  each  genera- 
tion in  succession  inherited  more  trotting  power 
than  was  inherited  by  its  predecessor.  But  an 
offspring  cannot  inherit  what  the  parent  did  not 
have.  If  the  offspring  is  to  inherit  more  than 
the  parent  inherited,  the  question  arises  as  to  how 
the  parent  got  that  which  he  did  not  inherit. 

When  we  take  the  best  trotting  stock  of  the 
present  day  and  run  their  pedigrees  back  four  or 
five  generations,  we  find  that  these  superior  ani- 
mals were  not  produced  by  any  ordinary  method 


From  Savagery  to  Civilization        65 

of  breeding.  We  got  these  improvements  only 
from  parents,  grandparents,  great-grandparents, 
etc.,  who  developed  their  trotting  muscles  to  an 
unusual  extent  before  reproducing.  This  fact  is 
seen  partly  from  the  individual  histories  of  the 
progenitors  in  those  pedigrees,  and  partly  from 
the  high  ages  at  which  they  appear  as  sires  and 
dams. 

When  we  turn  our  attention  to  human  beings 
we  find  the  same  facts  there.  Intellectually  emi- 
nent men  come  from  old  parentage  and  not  from 
young  parentage.  While  an  eminent  man  is 
sometimes  the  son  of  comparatively  young  par- 
ents, he  is  never  the  son  of  young  parents  who 
were  the  children  of  young  parents.  In  pedigrees 
of  eminent  men  the  average  age  of  one  thousand 
fathers,  grandfathers,  etc.,  was  over  forty  years. 
When  we  analyze  the  distribution  of  births  in 
the  pedigrees  of  eminent  men,  and  compare  that 
with  the  normal  distribution,  we  find  that  the 
older  the  father  is  when  the  son  is  born  the 
greater  is  the  inherited  mental  ability  of  the  son. 
When  we  look  back  at  the  fathers  and  grand- 
fathers of  these  eminent  men  to  see  what  kind 
of  lives  they  lived  before  reproducing,  we  find 


66         Fram  Savagery  to  CivOization 

that  it  is  not  the  abstract  age  of  the  father  which 
determines  the  matter.  It  is  the  extent  to  which 
the  father  developed  his  mental  powers  by  men- 
tal efforts.  The  age  of  the  father  is  simply  a 
factor  in  measuring  the  amount  of  his  efforts, 
and  consequently  a  factor  in  measuring  the  men- 
tal development  coming  from  those  efforts. 

To  enable  them  to  exist  with  any  degree  of 
comfort,  men  living  in  cold  climates  must  work 
much  harder  than  men  living  in  warm  climates. 
This  extra  work  is  both  mental  and  physical,  and 
the  result  of  such  work  is  a  corresponding  de- 
velopment of  mental  and  physical  powers.  At 
the  time  of  reproducing,  the  man  of  the  north 
is  somewhat  more  developed  than  his  brother  to 
the  south,  and  their  sons  inherit  the  difference. 
This  is  repeated  generation  ^fter  generation  until 
small  differences  grow  to  be  great  differences. . 
Then,  when  there  comes  a  clash  of  arms,  the 
southern  man  falls  before  the  man  of  the  north. 

Warlike  tribes  and  warlike  nations  have  al- 
ways been  noted  as  being  superior,  mentally  and 
physically,  to  their  more  peaceful  neighbors. 
Why  ?  Looking  at  the  matter  closely  we  can  see 
that  it  is  for  the  same  reason  as  that  before  given. 


From  Savagery  ta  Civilization  67 

A  tribe  or  nation  which  spends  much  time  in  the 
practice  of  war  must  necessarily  do  much  men- 
tal and  physical  work  which  would  otherwise  be 
undone.  This  extra  work  causes  extra  mental 
and  physical  development,  and  children  coming 
from  such  developed  persons  have  better  power 
inheritances. 

Where  war  spirit  and  war  preparations  be- 
come a  part  of  national  existence,  as  in  Sparta, 
Rome  and  modern  Germany,  another  factor 
enters  into  the  matter.  The  soldier  is  trained 
when  young  and  is  not  permitted  to  marry  at  as 
early  an  age  as  his  ancestors  married.  As  a  re- 
sult, there  is  a  rise  in  the  average  age  at  which 
parents  produce  their  children,  and  the  status 
of  any  tribe  or  race  of  people  is  determined  by 
that  average.  The  lowest  tribes  are  those  which 
reproduce  at  the  lowest  average  age,  and  the  high- 
est are  those  which  reproduce  at  the  highest 
average  age.  This  is,  of  course,  modified  by  the 
degree  of  activity.  Each  increase  in  mental  and 
physical  activity  on  the  part  of  parents  causes  a 
corresponding  increase  in  the  inherited  capabili- 
ties of  the  offspring,  even  when  there  is  no  in- 
crease in  the  age  of  the  parents  at  time  of 
reproducing. 


68         From  Savs^ety  to  Civilization 

Wars  have  caused  the  death  of  many  of  the 
best  men  of  the  nations  at  war,  and  the  men  so 
killed  have  been  eliminated  from  the  general 
stock.  Yet  it  is  a  plain  fact  that  those  tribes, 
races  and  nations  which  have  lost  the  greatest 
numbers  of  their  best  men,  yet  not  enough  to 
cause  extermination,  are  the  tribes,  races  and  na- 
tions which  have  advanced  most  rapidly  from  a 
low  to  a  high  stage.  The  explanation  is  simple 
but  it  is  not  that  of  the  eugenist  doctrine.  Good 
men  were  killed,  but  the  extra  efforts  caused  by 
warfare  gave  to  the  survivors  an  extra  develoj>- 
ment  which  more  than  balanced  what  was  lost  by 
deaths.  The  next  generation  was  produced  by 
these  survivors  and  inherited  their  acquired 
development. 

War  is  and  always  has  been  a  destructive 
agent,  but  the  preparations  for  war  and  the  ac- 
tivities growing  out  of  war  have  been  a  con- 
structive agent.  We  learned  this  first  fact  from 
war  itself,  but  the  second  fact  we  learn  from 
other  sources.  Now  that  we  know  what  it  is 
that  brings  about  progress,  we  can  have  that 
progress  without  any  of  the  disadvantages  of 
war.    One  of  the  first  things  to  do  is  to  shut  off 


From  Savagery  to  Civilizatian  69 

marriage  by  minors  so  that  we  will  not  be  pro- 
ducing inferior  stock  by  undeveloped  parents. 
Another  thing  to  do  is  to  introduce  more  physical 
training  into  our  schools  so  as  to  check  a  grow- 
ing tendency  toward  physical  degeneracy. 


CHAPTER  V. 

EVOLUTION   OF   INTELLIGENCE 
AND  LONGEVITY. 

AT  some  time  in  the  past  there  was  a  com- 
mon ancestor  for  man  and  the  ape.    We 

do  not  know  that  common  ancestor,  but  we  have 
some  concepts  in  regard  to  him.  We  are  not  con- 
cerned here  with  how  tall  he  was,  how  much  hair 
was  on  his  body,  or  what  color  that  hair  may- 
have  been.  The  immediate  things  under  con- 
sideration are  those  qualities  of  mind  and  mus- 
cle which  enabled  him  and  his  descendants  to 
meet  the  conditions  involved  in  the  struggle  for 
existence. 

Considering  the  things  we  have  learned  in 
archaeology  and  palaeontology  it  is  highly  prob- 
able that  the  nearest  common  ancestor  of  man 
and  the  ape  was  less  intelligent  than  is  the  ape 
today.  Still,  for  the  sake  of  our  argument,  it 
will  be  assumed  that  the  ape  of  today  is  the  same 
in  intelligence  as  was  that  common  ancestor. 
With  that  assumption  we  have  the  case  of  hu- 

70 


Evolution  of  Intelligence  71 

man  beings  of  high  intelligence  descended  from 
ancestors  which  were  mentally  lower  than  those 
human  beings  we  now  call  feeble-minded. 

The  eugenists  tell  us  that  from  feeble-minded 
parents  we  can  get  only  feeble-minded  descend- 
ants and  are  urging  that  we  segregate  or  sterilize 
all  persons  below  some  illy  defined  standard  of 
mental  development.  Evolution  tells  us  that  the 
best  we  have  came  from  ancestors  lower  than 
what  we  now  call  feeble-minded. 

The  eugenist  professes  to  believe  in  evolu- 
tion, and  at  the  same  time  he  preaches  a  doctrine 
which  denies  evolution.  When  confronted  with 
this  contradiction  and  asked  to  explain  it,  the 
eugenist  assumes  that  at  some  time  in  the  dis- 
tant past,  when  there  were  giants  and  fairies  in 
the  world,  things  just  happened  which  don't 
happen  any  more.  Try  to  find  out  from  a 
eugenist  or  biologist  just  what  happened  or  how 
it  happened,  that  intelligent  descendants  came 
from  unintelligent  ancestors  and  one  runs  into 
ideas  so  vague  and  nebulous  that  they  are 
matched  by  nothing  short  of  the  superstitions  of 
savages. 


72  Evolution  of  Intelligence 

Let  us  go  back  to  that  common  ancestor  of 
man  and  ape  and  picture  to  ourselves  some  of 
the  steps  by  which  man  was  evolved.  That  early 
ancestor  was  of  low  intelligence,  reproduced  at 
an  average  age  of  some  twelve  or  fifteen  years 
from  birth  of  parent  to  birth  of  offspring,  and 
normally  lived  some  twenty  or  thirty  years.  Lit- 
tle by  little  as  the  ages  went  by,  this  animal  re- 
produced at  later  and  later  average  ages,  rose 
step  by  step  in  intelligence  and  lived  greater 
and  greater  lengths  of  time. 

These  three  things,  average  age  at  reproduc- 
tion, inherited  powers,  and  normal  longevity,  are 
indissolvably  linked  together  and  an  examination 
of  the  relationship  between  them  shows  how  they 
are  linked  and  how  they  may  be  brought  under 
human  control.  Between  natural  longevity  and 
the  average  age  at  which  reproduction  takes 
place,  the  relationship  is  direct,  as  far  as  it  is 
possible  to  determine  by  facts  available.  In  the 
different  races  of  men,  and  in  different  species  of 
lower  animals,  the  natural  longevity  is  approxi- 
mately twice  the  average  age  at  which  reproduc- 
tion takes  place. 


Evalution  af  Intelligence  73 

Does  natural  longevity  follow  variations  in 
the  average  age  at  which  a  race  of  animals  re- 
produces, or  do€S  the  average  age  at  which  they 
reproduce  follow  variations  in  natural  longevity? 

The  question  is  fair.  The  facts  of  evolution 
say  that  the  two  go  together,  and  logic  requires 
that  one  be  the  leader  and  the  other  the  follower. 
We  know  that  reproduction  is  spread  over  con- 
siderable parts  of  the  lives  of  parents,  and  that 
any  kind  of  circumstances  may  limit  the  sur- 
vivors to  offspring  produced  at  early  or  late  parts 
of  life.  We  also  know  that  tribes  and  races  of 
men  at  many  times  in  the  past  have  adopted 
marriage  customs  which  changed  the  average  age 
at  which  the  race  reproduced.  Such  changes 
usually  had  their  foundation  in  some  military 
expediency,  and  certainly  were  not  changes  fol- 
lowing or  caused  by  previous  varitions  in  natural 
longevity.  In  other  words,  we  know  definitely 
that  changes  in  the  average  age  at  which  a  race 
of  animals  reproduces  may  be,  and  frequently 
are,  wholly  independent  of  previous  changes  in 
the  longevity  of  the  individuals  of  the  race. 

If  changes  in  longevity  follow  changes  in  the 
average  age  at  which  reproduction  takes  place, 


74  Evolution  of  Intelligence 

then  we  know  the  circumstances  which  produce 
'the  original  changes,  and  can  control  them.  If 
changes  in  longevity  is  the  leader  in  this  matter, 
then  we  must  assume  some  mysterious  agency 
as  being  the  cause.  To  say  that  an  increase  of 
longevity  over  what  existed  at  some  earlier  date 
is  a  "mutation,"  is  such  an  assumption  of  the 
mysterious. 

We  have  a  little  direct  evidence  on  this  mat- 
ter in  the  history  of  races  of  men  at  present  liv- 
ing. Some  are  much  longer  lived  than  other 
ones.  They  are  also  the  ones  which  reproduce 
at  the  latest  average  age.  When  we  go  back  into 
the  marriage  customs  of  the  past  we  find  that 
those  races  in  which  longevity  is  greatest  today 
are  those  which  are  descended  from  people  who 
long  ago  introduced  exogamy,  wife  capture,  wife 
purchase,  and  other  tribal  customs  which  raised 
the  average  age  at  reproduction.  Those  races 
which  are  lowest  and  in  which  longevity  is  least, 
are  those  races  which  have  not  artificially  de- 
layed the  average  age  of  reproduction.  They  are 
the  races  in  which  boys  and  girls  are  free  to 
reproduce  as  soon  as  they  are  so  disposed. 


Evolution  of  Intelligence  75 

There  is  no  uncertainty  about  this  matter. 
Average  age  at  reproduction  and  average  longev- 
ity have  changed  in  races  of  men  now  living, 
and  changes  in  one  have  followed  changes  in  the 
other.  We  know  that  the  direct  or  immediate 
cause  of  change  in  average  age  at  reproduction 
has  been  usually  some  military  necessity  or  tribal 
custom  based  upon  military  necessity.  We  can- 
not assume  that  this  military  necessity  grew  out 
of  some  spontaneous  variation  in  the  germ-plasm 
which  increased  natural  longevity.  The  only 
logical  conclusion  is  that  natural  longevity  is  de- 
termined by  the  average  age  at  which  ancestors 
have  reproduced  during  several  preceding  gen- 
erations. 

To  get  a  line  on  this  matter  I  made  a  direct 
test  of  the  length  of  life  of  different  brothers 
and  sisters  in  the  same  family.  A  person's 
natural  longevity  is  not  determined  by  the  length 
of  time  he  lives,  because  practically  no  one  lives 
the  full  term  of  his  natural  life.  Each  person  is 
either  killed  or  kills  himself  before  he  reaches 
the  point  of  dying  of  old  age.  While  age  at 
death  is  no  criterion  of  a  person's  longevity, 
still,  by  taking  a  large  number  of  persons  prop- 


76  Evolutian  of  Intelligence 

erly  classified,  age  at  death  may  be  used  to  deter- 
mine relative  longevity  as  distinguished  from 
actual  longevity. 

It  is  not  possible  to  explain  here  all  of  the 
steps  taken  to  eliminate  errors  in  an  investiga- 
tion which  is  bristling  w^ith  potential  errors,  but 
a  few  points  will  be  mentioned.  The  material 
taken  consisted  of  large  families  of  brothers  and 
sisters  who  lived  into  the  reproductive  age  be- 
yond twenty-five.  The  average  family  consisted 
of  a  little  more  than  six  persons,  and  the  total 
number  of  persons  was  1,105.  These  persons 
were  made  into  a  composite  family  in  which  there 
was  a  direct  comparison  between  the  age  of  the 
father  when  the  child  was  born,  and  the  age  of 
the  child  at  its  death.  All  known  cases  of  vio- 
lent deaths  were  eliminated,  and  care  was  taken 
to  eliminate  as  much  as  possible  all  families  of  a 
distinctly  pathological  character.  Also  to  get  a 
line  on  variations  in  health  of  parents.  The  final 
result  may  be  set  forth  as  follows : 

As  long  as  parents  retain  their  health  and 
strength,  the  older  they  are  when  their  children 
are  born,  tlie  greater  will  be  the  natural  longevity 
of  those  children.    The  figures  showed  that  each 


Evolution  of  Intelligence  77 

four  years  added  to  the  age  of  the  parent  when 
the  child  was  born,  added  one  year  to  the  normal 
longevity  of  the  child.  The  actual  table  is  as 
follows : 

Expectancy  of  Life  at  Age  of  25  for  1,105  Brothers 
and  Sisters  of  Composite  Family. 

Average 
Age  of 
Ages  of  Fathers  at  No.  of  Childen  at 

Birth   of   Children  Children  Death 

Under  25 83  62.63  years 

25  to  29 233  65.20  years 

30  to  34 266  65.28  years 

35  to  39 199  65.41  years 

40  to  44 165  68.02  years 

45  to  49 88  66.28  years 

50  and  over 71  70.27  years 

1105  65.89  years 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  lengthening  the 
time  from  birth  in  one  generation  to  birth  in  the 
next  adds  to  the  longevity  of  the  descendants, 
but  the  figures  given  must  be  considered  as  ap- 
proximate only.  There  is  a  high  degree  of  prob- 
ability that  the  approximation  is  pretty  close,  but 
to  determine  the  matter  accurately  would  require 
a  more  extended  investigation,  and  one  extend- 
ing over  several   successive  generations.     This 


78  Evolution  of  Intelligence 

matter  cannot  be  determined  by  anything  so  su- 
perficial as  ordinary  tabulations. 

It  is  well  established,  but  not  yet  widely  known, 
that  the  age  of  the  parent  at  conception  of  the 
child  has  a  profound  influence  upon  the  natural 
intelligence  of  the  child.  The  superior  children 
come  from  the  older  parents  and  not  from  the 
younger  ones.  Those  persons  who,  a  few  years 
ago,  denied  this  fact,  are  now  reduced  to  the 
point  of  trying  to  find  some  explanation  which 
is  not  inconsistent  with  their  preconceived  ideas. 

Passing  by  all  explanations,  we  have  the  defi- 
nite fact  that  superior  children  come  from  older 
parents,  and  when  we  have  old  parents  for  two 
or  three  generations  in  succession,  we  get  stock 
which  is  much  superior  to  the  normal  stock. 
There  is  also  the  fact  that  increased  longevity, 
as  well  as  increased  intelligence,  follows  increase 
in  time  between  generations. 

When  a  person  exerts  himself  he  expends  cer- 
tain foot-pounds  of  energy,  and  the  energy  must 
be  in  his  system  before  he  can  expend  it.  If 
the  efiforts  which  a  person  makes  are  moderate, 
within  the  ordinary  meaning  of  that  term,  then 
the  foot-pounds  of  energy  withdrawn  by  exer- 


Evolution  of  Intelligence  79 

tion  are  soon  replaced  by  other  foot-pounds  of 
energy  derived  from  food. 

But  it  is  known  that  a  man  by  great  efforts 
long  continued  may  cause  his  own  death  as  a 
result  of  nothing  else  than  his  own  exertions. 
This  means  that  death  is  caused  by  withdraw- 
ing from  the  system  more  than  a  certain  amount 
of  energy,  and  that  in  turn  means  that  life  itself 
is  a  form  of  energy.  We  identify  electricity 
as  being  a  form  of  energy,  even  though  we  do 
not  know  precisely  what  this  form  is.  In  the 
same  way  we  can  identify  life  as  being  a  form 
of  energy,  even  though  we  are  unable  to  deter- 
mine the  essential  nature  of  this  form  as  dis- 
tinguished from  other  forms. 

But  it  is  not  the  intention  here  to  elaborate  on 
the  ways  of  identifying  life  as  a  form  of  energy. 
I  have  done  that  to  a  considerable  extent  in  other 
contributions.  It  is  sufficient  for  our  present  pur- 
pose to  point  out  that  energy  within  the  body  is 
the  source  of  the  foot-pounds  of  work  that  a 
person  may  perform,  and  that  if  more  than  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  this  energy  is  withdrawn  at  one 
time,  death  results.     The  manner  in  which  the 


80  Evalution  of  Intelligence 

energy  within  the  system  is  built  up  was  the 
subject  matter  of  a  previous  chapter. 

The  table  for  longevity  was  made  up  from 
large  families.  The  parents  of  large  families  are 
well  along  in  life  when  their  later  children  are 
produced,  and  the  strenuous  efforts  in  caring  for 
earlier  ones  built  up  their  powers  before  the 
later  ones  were  conceived.  The  later  children 
live  longer  than  the  earlier  ones  because  they 
inherit  the  powers  which  their  parents  acquire  in 
the  years  between  the  production  of  the  earlier 
children  and  the  later  ones. 

Does  some  one  think  that  adding  to  the  longev- 
ity of  children  by  causing  the  parents  to  devel- 
op their  own  powers  by  exercise  before  produc- 
ing the  children  is  a  freak  idea  which  has  no 
foundation  in  fact  ?  We  can  determine  that  mat- 
ter positively  by  going  to  the  records  of  the 
trotting  horse. 

We  have  a  record  of  39  stallions  of  the  trot- 
ting breed  who  lived  to  be  30  or  more  years  of 
age.  These  horses  were  all  born  between  the 
years  of  1804  and  1887.  During  that  period  of 
horse  history,  not  one  stallion  in  a  hundred  was 
trained  and  raced  sufficiently  to  enable  him  to 


Evolution  of  Intelligence  81 

obtain  a  standard  record  of  2:30.  This  should 
be  evident  from  the  fact  that  no  stalHon  ever 
trotted  in  standard  time  before  1858,  and  that  it 
was  not  common  to  train  and  race  stalHons  until 
after  1890.  On  the  mere  matter  of  probabiHties, 
not  one  of  these  39  stallions  should  be  a  horse 
with  a  race  record,  or  the  son  of  such  a  horse. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  18  of  them  were  horses  with 
race  records,  and  1 1  of  them  were  sons  of  horses 
with  race  records. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

DISEASE  AND  IMMUNITY. 

THE  verb  "to  acquire"  means  to  obtain  by 
effort,  exertion,  exercise,  or  performance 

of  work  of  some  kind.  The  verb  "to  educate" 
means  *'to  exercise  the  mental  faculties,  as 
by  instruction,  training  and  discipline,  in 
such  a  way  as  to  develop  and  render  efficient 
the  natural  powers."  It  also  means  to  exer- 
cise physical  powers,  as  we  have  such  a  thing  as 
^'physical  education."  And  "education"  means 
the  "systematic  development  and  cultivation  of 
the  mind  and  other  natural  powers." 

From  the  biological  standpoint,  an  education 
consists  of  the  development  of  powers  by  exer- 
cising them,  and  not  the  things  learned.  This  is 
plain  enough  in  physical  education,  but  is  gen- 
erally confused  in  speaking  of  mental  education 
because  of  the  common  use  of  that  term  "edu- 
cation" in  another  sense.  The  biological  educa- 
tion is  the  thing  acquired,  and  the  only  "acquired 
character"  which  has  any  right  to  that  term  is 

82 


Disease  and  Immunity  83 

some  increase  of  powers  by  the  exercise  of  those 
already  in  existence.  A  negative  acquirement 
would  be  by  the  loss  of  powers  by  idleness.  Such 
things  as  mutilations  and  sunburns  are  ''thrust 
characters"  and  not  acquired  characters. 

When  a  man  winds  up  a  spring,  punches  a 
bag,  runs  a  foot  race,  or  performs  physical  labor 
of  any  kind,  he  expends  certain  foot  pounds  of 
energy,  and  foot  pounds  are  something  well 
known  in  science.    Those  foot  pounds  of  energy 

come  out  of  the  muscles  of  the  man  who  makes 
the  efforts,  and  they  must  be  in  those  muscles 
before  he  can  expend  them. 

A  mathematical  calculation  represents  an 
operation  of  the  intelligence.  But  a  calculating 
machine  driven  by  a  steam  engine  will  do  the 
same  work,  and  things  which  are  equal  to  the 
same  thing  are  equal  to  each  other.  The  object 
here  is  to  show  that  physical  energy  and  mental 
energy  are  special  forms  of  that  energy  which  we 
know  elsewhere  as  heat,  light,  electricity,  etc. 

When  a  man  swings  Indian  clubs  or  dumbbells 
he  exercises  certain  muscles  and  expends  cer- 
tain foot  pounds  of  energy.  As  the  swinging  con- 
tinues, he  gradually  becomes  tired  and  has  to 


84  Disease  and  Immunity 

stop  for  a  rest.  After  resting  for  a  few  minutes 
he  can  resume  his  exercise,  but  soon  becomes 
tired  and  must  rest  a  second  time.  After  another 
short  rest  he  can  begin  the  exercise  a  third  time, 
and  so  on  time  after  time  for  perhaps  several 
hours.  Each  period  in  which  the  man  was  tak- 
ing this  exercise  consumed  the  available  energy 
in  the  muscles  being  exercised,  and  during  each 
period  of  rest  the  supply  in  the  exercised  muscles 
was  partially  replenished  by  drawing  upon  the 
store  existing  at  the  time  in  other  organs. 

The  fact  that  severely  exercised  muscles  in 
the  arms  may  draw  upon  the  reserves  in  unexer- 
cised parts  of  the  body  is  evident  from  the  fact 
that  a  person  who  has  become  tired  by  swinging 
dumbbells  is  in  no  condition  to  compete  in  a  foot 
race  or  in  a  debating  contest.  Each  organ  has 
in  it  a  store  of  energy  normally  appropriated  for 
the  use  of  that  organ,  but  in  emergency,  a  se- 
verely taxed  organ  may  draw  upon  the  supplies 
in  other  organs. 

The  fact  that  one  organ  of  a  body  when  under 
strain  may  call  upon  and  receive  assistance  from 
other  organs  represents  one  of  the  great  advan- 
tages a  miUticellular  organism  has  over  the  uni- 


Disease  and  Immunity  85 

cellular.  In  multicellular  organisms,  strain  is 
never  thrown  directly  upon  all  of  the  organs  of 
the  body  at  the  same  time,  and  those  not  under 
strain  can  help  those  which  are.  And  mental 
powers  are  not  exceptions.  They  may  be  ex- 
pended as  common  foot  pounds  through  other 
organs. 

When  a  man  takes  up  a  course  of  physical 
training,  or  does  other  work  which  is  more  than 
has  been  customary  or  habitual  with  him,  but  an 
amount  which  is  less  per  day  that  his  system  can 
restore  from  the  food  he  consumes,  he  not  only 
gets  back  the  energy  he  expended,  but  a  little 
more.  The  result  is  that  he  gains  some  in 
strength  and  endurance  and  can  do  a  little  more 
work  on  the  second  day  that  on  the  first  one.  If 
he  gradually  increases  his  work  as  his  powers 
develop  he  can  continue  to  gain  up  to  some  point 
which  has  never  been  determined. 

But  if  the  man  expends  a  little  more  energy 
per  day  by  his  exercise  than  his  system  is  capa- 
ble of  restoring  from  food,  then  he  is  a  little 
weaker  the  second  day  that  he  was  the  first. 
If  he  repeats  this  operation  day  after  day,  he 


86  Disease  and  Immunity 

grows  weaker  and  weaker  until  finally  he  dies 
from  sheer  exhaustion. 

The  distinction  here  is  between  a  load  and  an 
overload.  If  the  load  is  something  more  than  it 
was  before,  and  is  continually  increased  but  never 
raised  to  the  point  of  becoming  an  overload, 
the  man,  or  other  animal  or  plant,  continues  to 
gain  in  powers  for  an  indefinite  period.  If  the 
load  is  raised  to  an  overload,  then  the  man  be- 
comes progressively  weaker.  This  last  is,  in  its 
essence,  the  same  as  disease. 

Several  examples  of  the  development  of 
powers  were  given  in  a  preceding  chapter.  A 
few  more  given  at  this  point  will  help  in  an 
understanding  of  the  relation  of  powers  to  health 
and  disease,  and  to  everything  which  makes  life 
worth  living. 

The  flagellata  are  unicellular  animals.  During 
a  period  of  about  six  years  Dallinger  subjected 
these  animals  to  gradually  increasing  tempera- 
tures. Beginning  with  those  normally  living  in 
water  at  60  degrees  Fahr.,  he  found  that  they 
began  to  die  as  soon  as  the  temperature  rose 
above  'JZ  degrees.  But  by  holding  the  tempera- 
ture for  about  two  months  at  this  point  he  found 


Disease  and  Immunity  67 

he  could  raise  the  temperature  still  higher.  At 
78  degrees  he  found  another  sticking  point  which 
he  could  not  get  by  for  eight  months  without 
causing  deaths.  But  past  this  point  progress 
was  much  more  rapid.  Several  other  sticking 
points  were  found,  but  he  finally  got  these  ani- 
mals to  live  in  water  at  158  degrees,  when  the 
experiment  was  terminated  by  accident. 

Here  is  an  example  of  these  little  animals  de- 
veloping their  powers  of  resisting  the  action  of 
heat  on  their  protoplasmic  substance  by  exercis- 
ing such  powers  as  they  had  in  the  beginning, 
and  such  as  they  acquired  on  the  road.  In  that 
process  they  gained  powers  continually  under  in- 
creasing load,  but  they  died  when  the  load  was 
raised  to  an  overload. 

Czerny  found  that  by  a  very  gradual  addition 
of  salt  he  could  get  amoebae  to  live  in  a  four  per 
cent  solution,  but  that  none  could  survive  when 
placed  directly  in  a  two  per  cent  solution.  The 
two  per  cent  solution  was  jn  overload  for  amoebae 
which  had  lived  in  pure  water,  but  four  per  cent 
of  salt  was  less  than  an  overload  after  the 
amoebae  had  developed  their  powers  by  exercising 
them, 


88  Disease  and  Immunity 

Davenport  and  Neal  raised  three  lots  of 
stentors, — one  in  pure  water  and  another  in  a  very 
weak  solution  of  corrosive  sublimate.  After  two 
days  both  lots  were  put  into  a  killing  solution 
which  was  twenty  times  as  strong  as  the  weak 
solution.  Those  raised  in  pure  water  died  in  83 
seconds,  while  those  raised  in  the  weak  solution 
lived  for  304  seconds,  or  nearly  four  times  as 
long.  No  deaths  occurred  in  the  weak  solution, 
but  the  animals  there  had  to  exert  themselves  to 
resist  the  action  of  corrosive  sublimate,  and  in 
doing  this  they  acquired  powers  they  did  not 
have  before,  and  powers  which  never  existed  in 
any  ancestor.  The  third  lot  was  kept  in  a  solu- 
tion twice  as  strong  as  the  weak  one,  or  one- 
tenth  of  the  strength  of  the  killing  solution. 
These  last  died  more  quickly  than  those  raised 
in  pure  water. 

Here  we  have  a  case  of  one  lot  of  stentors  sub- 
jected to  a  load  which  was  within  the  powers 
they  had  originally,  and  another  lot  subjected  to 
a  load  which  was  in  the  nature  of  an  overload. 
When  the  load  was  greater  than  anything  to 
which  they  had  been  subjected  before,  but  was 
within  their  powers,  those  powers  were  built  up 


Disease  and  Immunity  69 

by  their  exercise  in  carrying  that  load,  and  they 
were  able  to  survive  much  longer  under  a 
killing  load.  When  the  load  was  an  overload, 
that  overload  absorbed  part  of  the  powers  they 
had  originally,  and  they  died  more  quickly  when 
placed  in  the  killing  solution. 

In  sexual  reproduction,  two  germ  cells  unite 
and  afterwards  develop  into  a  new  individual 
by  growth  and  repeated  divisions.  This  union 
of  cells  and  subsequent  growth  and  division  is  a 
dynamic  process  which  calls  for  greater  or  less 
exertions  on  the  part  of  the  cells  involved.  If 
the  two  germs  cells  which  unite  come  from 
parents  of  the  same  breed,  these  cells  are  much 
alike  and  can  unite  and  subsequently  divide  with 
a  minimum  of  effort.  If  they  come  from  differ- 
ent breeds,  then  these  germ  cells  are  somewhat 
unlike  and  it  requires  greater  efforts  on  their 
part  to  successfully  fit  themselves  together  and 
then  divide  into  new  cells  which  constitute 
proper  divisions  of  the  united  differences.  If 
they  come  from  different  species  or  different 
genera,  then  the  uniting  cells  are  still  more  un- 
like, and  this  increased  unlikeness  calls  for  still 


90  Disease  and  Immunity 

greater  efforts  on  the  part  of  this  living  substance 
in  making  the  proper  union  and  divisions. 

One  of  the  phenomena  of  hybridization  is  that 
the  hybrids  are  commonly  more  vigorous  than 
either  parent.  This  extra  vigor  does  not  come 
from  nowhere  out  of  nothing.  Vigor  means  phys- 
ical power  of  some  kind,  and  powers  are  devel- 
oped in  living  organisms  by  exercising  those 
previously  in  existence,  and  in  no  other  manner. 
Primarily,  the  vigor  of  hybrids  is  increased 
power  of  growth,  and  increased  growth  means 
increased  power  of  cell  division.  We  can  trace 
this  increased  power  in  hybrids  directly  to  the 
extra  efforts  (increased  exercise)  which  the  un- 
like germ  cells  had  to  make  to  form  a  proper 
union  and  then  proper  divisions  of  the  mixture  of 
differently  organized  substances. 

Another  thing  observed  in  hybridization  is  that 
the  extent  to  which  the  hybrid  is  more  vigorous 
than  the  parents  increases  with  the  wideness  of 
the  cross  up  to  a  certain  point,  after  which  there 
is  a  decrease  of  vigor  in  offspring.  In  wide 
crosses  the  offspring  arc  abnormally  weak,  and 
if  the  cross  is  still  wider  there  is  a  failure  to  de- 
velop.    In  some  wide  crosses,  as  in  the  mule, 


Disease  and  Immunity  91 

there  is  a  gain  in  physical  strength  but  a  loss  in 
fertility.  In  other  wide  crosses,  particularly  in 
plants,  the  new  individuals  are  both  stunted  and 
sterile.  In  extremely  wide  crosses  in  some  fishes, 
there  will  be  a  union  of  germ  cells  but  a  break 
down  in  segmentation  soon  afterwards,  so  that 
the  embryo  never  is  completed. 

The  explanation  is  simple.  Each  increase  in 
load  increases  the  efforts  of  the  individual  to 
carry  the  load,  and  powers  are  increased  in  pro- 
portion to  the  extent  to  which  they  are  exercised. 
This  is  true  up  to  the  point  at  which  a  load  be- 
comes an  overload,  beyond  which  point  each  in- 
crease of  load  decreases  powers  and  hastens 
death.  Increasing  the  wideness  of  the  cross  in- 
creases the  load  upon  the  cells  of  the  new  indi- 
vidual until  the  load  finally  becomes  an  overload 
and  causes  a  breakdown  and  a  failure  to  develop. 

Pasteur  found  that  the  anthrax  bacillus  could 

be  raised  on  an  artificial  medium,  as  bouillon  at 

blood  temperature.  When  so  raised  the  bacilli 
do  not  have  to  fight  for  life  in  a  hostile  blood 
reaction,  and  because  they  do  not  have  to  fight 

they  gradually  lose  their  power  of  fighting,  which 

is  their  virulence.    He  used  two  cultures,  a  very 


92  Disease  and  Immunity 

weak  one  produced  by  a  long  period  of  idleness 
in  life  on  artificial  food,  and  one  not  so  weak 
produced  by  a  shorter  period  of  idleness.  He  then 
inoculated  an  ox  with  the  weaker  culture,  and 
twelve  days  later  with  the  stronger  culture.  An 
animal  so  inoculated  was  immune  to  fully 
virulent  virus.  Here  we  have  the  progressive 
decay  of  powers  in  the  bacilli  by  idleness,  and  the 
progressive  development  of  powers  in  the  ox  by 
exercise. 

But  Pasteur's  experiment  went  still  further 
in  this  matter.  By  long  cultivation  on  artificial 
food  he  got  anthrax  germs  so  weak  from  the 
lack  of  exercise  in  fighting  for  food  that  they 
were  unable  to  survive  even  in  a  mouse.  But 
by  taking  such  weak  virus  and  inoculating  a 
very  feeble  animal,  as  a  guinea  pig  a  day  old, 
and  then  passing  it  along  by  inoculation  to 
stronger  and  stronger  animals,  he  found  that  the 
strength  of  the  virus  was  built  up  step  by  step 
with  each  inoculation  until  it  was  powerful 
enough  to  attack  the  strongest  animals.  Here 
we  have  a  case  of  absolute  control  over  the  gain 
and  loss  of  powers  in  the  same  organism  by 
controlling   the   amount  of   its   exercise. 


Disease  and  Immunity  93 

When  Pasteur  got  anthrax  virus  so  weak  that 
it  could  not  survive  in  the  blood  of  a  guinea  pig 
a  month  old,  the  powers  of  the  guinea  pig  were 
an  overload  for  those  germs.  But  when  he  came 
down  to  something  as  feeble  as  a  guinea  pig  a 
day  old,  then  those  weak  germs  were  an  overload 
for  that  young  guinea  pig. 

Now  the  difference  between  a  guinea  pig  a 
day  old  and  a  guinea  pig  a  month  old  is  a  differ- 
ence in  physical  powers  developed  by  normal 
activity  in  the  interval  between  a  day  and  a 
month,  and  not  a  difference  in  inheritance. 
Guinea  pigs  do  not  do  any  inheriting  after  they 
are  born.  A  load  is  measured  by  the  powers 
necessary  to  carry  it,  and  as  powers  increase  or 
decrease  in  accordance  with  the  extent  to  which 
they  are  exercised,  it  is  evident  that  what  may 
be  an  overload  at  one  time  may  not  be  an  over- 
load at  another.  Also,  powers  may  be  decreased 
by  simply  shutting  off  the  power  supply,  in 
which  case  a  load  which  was  less  than  an  over- 
load might  become  an  overload.  For  example, 
a  load  which  a  person  could  carry  with  ease  and 
not  even  be  aware  of  its  presence  might  become 
an  overload  by  reason  of  an  insufficient  supply  of 


94  Disease  and  Immunity 

food,  or  of  some  ingredient  of  food.  An  animal 
weakene'd  by  starvation  is  more  than  normally 
likely  to  fall  a  victim  of  some  disease. 

When  a  person  is  worn  down  or  exhausted 
from  long  continued  physical  exertions  he  is 
much  more  susceptible  to  bacterial  infection  than 
when  not  so  exhausted.  Also,  after  a  man  has 
been  through  a  long  illness  due  to  some  bacterial 
infection,  he  is  worn  out  and  weak.  These  are 
facts  which  show  that  the  same  energy  used  in  a 
physical  struggle  is  the  energy  used  in  fighting 
bacterial  infection.  The  burden  thrown  upon  a 
man's  powers  by  bacterial  infection  is  called  dis- 
ease, but  the  similar  burden  thrown  on  the  same 
powers  by  an  opponent  or  by  some  physically 
observed  and  fully  understood  circumstances  is 
not  disease.  But  wherein  is  the  difference?  In 
both  cases  the  physical  powers  are  exhausted  by 
efforts  which  expend  energy  of  the  same  kind. 
Does  a  disease  cease  to  be  a  disease  when  the 
millions  of  cells  which  a  man  fights  are  organized 
into  large  bodies  instead  of  being  separate 
entities  ? 

We  can  convert  work  fully  and  completely  into 
heat,  but  we  can  make  the  reverse  trans  forma- 


Disease  and  Immunity  93 

tion  only  in  part.  As  a  consequence,  heat  is 
called  the  degraded  form  of  energy,  and  is  al- 
ways a  product  of  work  performed.     When  a 

person  takes  violent  exercise,  as  in  a  foot  race 
or  a  wrestling  match,  his  temperature  increases 
and  may  rise  to  105°  F.,  or  more,  and  such  ap- 
pearance of  extra  heat  is  evidence  of  the  exer- 
tion he  makes.  A  fever  represents  an  increase 
in  the  heat  form  of  energy  and  is  evidence  of  a 
physical  struggle  of  some  kind  which  is  invisible 
because  it  is  within  the  body.  The  invisible 
struggle  which  produces  a  fever  is  said  to  be 
disease,  and  the  visible  struggle  of  a  foot  race 
which  correspondingly  raises  temperature  is  not 
disease.  Is  a  question  of  disease  to  turn  upon 
the  degrees  of  visibility?  Is  a  bacterium  to  be 
considered  as  the  cause  of  disease  because  he 
can  be  seen  only  with  a  microscope,  and  an  oppo- 
nent in  a  wrestling  match  not  the  cause  of  disease 
because  he  can  be  seen  with  the  naked  eye? 

Resistance  to  disease  consists  of  power  to 
fight  off  whatever  it  is  that  causes  disease.  All 
persons  are  more  or  less  resistant  to  diseases  of 
all  kinds.  If  they  were  not,  then  they  would  die 
the  instant  a  disease  touched  them.    Even  in  case 


96  Disease  and  Immunity 

of  terrible  scourges,  the  actual  deaths  are  only  a 
small  fraction  of  the  entire  population,  a  fact 
which  shows  that  the  average  resistance  is  greater 
that  the  average  powers  of  attack  by  whatever 
parasite  it  is  that  causes  the  disease.  It  is  well 
known  that  some  races  of  men  have  greater  re- 
sistance to  certain  diseases  than  have  other  races, 
and  that  some  members  of  any  group  have 
greater  resistance  to  certain  diseases  than  have 
other  members.  It  is  also  known  that  the  same 
person  has  greater  resistance  at  some  times  than 
at  others,  as  is  evidenced  by  the  fact  that  he 
will  contract  a  disease  at  one  time  and  not  at 
another,  even  though  exposed. 

When  the  resistance  to  a  particular  disease  is 
of  a  high  order,  it  is  called  im.munity.  Thus, 
the  negroes  of  the  West  Indies  are  practically 
immune  to  yellow  fever  and  malaria,  the  Chinese 
are  said  to  be  immune  to  cholera,  the  buffalo  and 
Texas  cattle  are  relatively  immune  to  the  disease 
caused  by  the  Texas  fever  tick,  the  native  Ameri- 
can grape-vines  are  highly  resistant  to  the 
phylloxera,  which  has  played  such  havoc  with 
European  vineyards,  and  Asiatic  chestnuts  are 


Disease  and  Immunity  97 

resistant  to  the  fungus  which  is  destroying  our 
American  chestnut  trees. 

During  the  16th,  17th  and  18th  centuries 
smallpox  was  a  terrible  disease,  the  mortality 
from  which  is  said  to  have  been  "almost  incred- 
ible." With  the  introduction  of  vaccination  about 
a  hundred  years  ago,  the  disease  decreased  both 
in  frequency  and  mortality.  The  disease  is  still 
present,  but  as  compared  to  the  virulence  of  the 
past,  it  is  mild  in  form,  even  among  the  unvac- 

cinated.  The  reason  why  a  person  suffers 
only  slightly  from  such  a  disease  as  smallpox  is 

because  he  has  powers  of  resisting  that  disease. 
The  only  way  in  which  a  person  can  come  into 
possession  of  such  resistance  is  either  by  inherit- 
ing it,  or  by  acquiring  it  through  vaccination,  or 
by  having  the  disease  itself.  But  a  person  can 
inherit  such  resistance  only  from  an  ancestor 
who  had  it,  and  that  ancestor  could  get  it  only 
by  acquiring  it  or  by  inheritance. 

Now  it  happens  that  this  notable  inherited  re- 
sistance to  smallpox  begins  only  after  the  prac- 
tice of  vaccination  became  general.  That  in- 
herited resistance  cannot  be  due  to  "selective 
death-rate,"  because  smallpox  is  known  to  have 


98  Disease  and  Immunity 

been  a  periodical  plague  from  the  9th  century  on, 
yet  ''smallpox  was  probably  never  more  prevalent 
than  during  tlie  18th  century,"  and  never  more 
deadly.  Recently  previous  generations  acquired 
resistance  by  vaccination,  and  observable  in- 
heritance of  resistance  comes  first  in  the  imme- 
diate descendants  of  those  v^^ho  acquired  it.  The 
offspring  inherited  the  exact  thing  that  the 
parent  acquired,  and  there  is  no  appearance  of 
such  inheritance  until  after  the  acquirement  be- 
came general  by  repeated  vaccinations.  Nine 
hundred  years  of  selective  death-rate  applied  to 
the  entire  population  of  a  v^^hole  continent  pro- 
duced a  minus  quantity.  Less  than  one  hundred 
years  of  acquirement  before  reproducing  has 
brought  forth  something  very  definite. 

When  a  person  suffers  from  the  measles,  he 
does  so  because  he  did  not  have  the  power  neces- 
sary to  resist  the  attack.  But  in  fighting  the 
disease  and  overcoming  it  he  develops  a  power 
he  did  not  have  before,  and  thereafter  he  is 
immune  from  attack.  The  same  thing  is  true 
of  many  other  diseases.  The  thing  to  be  noted  is 
that  by  exercising  the  powers  which  he  had  there 


Disease  and  Iininiinity  99 

are  developed  (acquired)  powers  which  he  did 
not  have. 

Measles  is  a  common  disease  of  children,  and 
is  normally  not  serious.  But  when  it  is  first  in- 
troduced into  tribes  or  races  of  men  not  before 
subjected  to  it,  it  is  a  deadly  scourge.  Measles 
is  not  serious  to  the  white  child  because  he  in- 
herits a  resistance  which  enables  him  to  overcome 
it  with  small  inconvenience.  It  is  deadly  when 
first  introduced  among  Indians  or  other  tribes 
because  they  do  not  inherit  such  resistance.  But 
resistance  to  this  disease  is  something  which  is 
acquired  by  the  exertions  or  efforts  used  in  over- 
coming it,  and  the  white  child  inherits  the  exact 
thing  which  his  ancestors  for  generations  had 
acquired.  It  is  quite  certain  that  the  child  can- 
not inherit  something  which  its  ancestors  did 
not  have,  and  it  is  also  certain  that  ancestors 
could  not  come  into  possession  of  powers  of 
resistance  in  any  other  way  than  by  exercising 
such  powers  as  they  had  before. 

In  Europe  prior  to  the  19th  century,  smallpox 
would  ravage  a  district  and  then  disappear  com- 
pletely for  many  years.  By  the  time  it  came 
back  again,  those  who  were  immune  or  partly 


100  Disease  and  Immunity 

immune  before  would  have  lost  their  powers  of 
resistance  by  reason  of  the  fact  that  there  was 
no  occasion  to  exercise  them.  The  disease  would 
again  sweep  away  thousands  and  again  dis- 
appear for  years.  But  when  vaccination  came 
into  vogue  there  was  no  long  idle  period  for  an 
entire  population,  or  even  for  a  small  part  of  it. 
The  powers  of  resistance  became  inherited  as  far 
as  such  powers  existed  at  the  time  of  reproduc- 
ing. 

The  difference  between  measles  and  smallpox 
in  this  matter  is  that  measles  did  not  come  by 
epidemics  separated  by  many  years  in  which 
there  were  no  cases  in  a  community  of  consider- 
able size.  Usually  measles  has  been  continually 
present,  with  the  result  that  some  part  of  the 
population  was  continually  becoming  immune. 
The  child  caught  the  disease  and  was  thereafter 
immune.  By  the  time  the  next  generation  came 
along,  the  immunity  had  declined  sufficiently  to 
leave  the  child  subject  to  a  new  attack,  but  not 
enough  to  make  the  disease  dangerous.  The 
mere  fact  that  there  is  a  germ  between  parent 
and  child  does  not  affect  the  matter  in  the  least. 
In  those  powers  which  are  built  up  by  exercise 


Disease  and  Immunity  101 

and  lost  by  Idleness,  the  child  is  what  the  parents 
were  at  the  time  of  reproducing,  and  not  what 
they  were  at  some  earlier  date  or  will  be  at  some 
later  time. 

When  we  examine  cases  of  natural  immunity 
to  specific  diseases  we  find  that  it  exists  only  in 
those  animals  and  plants  which  have  lived  for 
several  generations  in  contact  with  the  disease 
producing  parasite.  Zebu  cattle  from  India  are 
said  to  be  immune  to  the  Texas  fever,  but  this 
immunity  is  to  attacks  by  the  tick  rather  than 
to  the  disease  as  such.  This  is  not  the  kind  of 
immunity  we  have  under  consideration.  What 
we  want  to  know  is  why  the  range  cattle  of 
Texas,  when  bitten  by  the  Texas  ticks,  do  not 
suffer  from  the  fever  as  do  northern  cattle  when 
taken  to  Texas.  Also,  why  the  West  Indian 
negro  does  not  get  yellow  fever  when  bitten  by 
the  proper  mosquito ;  why  the  Balkan  Ziginars 
are  not  stricken  with  typhus  fever  when  bitten 
by  the  Balkan  lice;  why  native  American  vines 
resist  the  American  phylloxera. 

In  any  epidemic,  a  considerable  proportion  of 
the  population  appear  to  escape  attacks,  and  of 
those   attacked,    a    considerable   proportion    re- 


102  Disease  and  Immunity 

cover.  Assuming  that  the  disease  is  new  to  the 
community  in  the  sense  that  it  has  not  been 
present  for  a  considerable  number  of  years, 
there  are  three  things  which  enter  into  the 
proposition.  The  first  is  the  resisting  power  of 
the  individual  as  measured  in  his  general  energy 
supply  which  may  be  called  upon  to  combat  the 
disease.  The  second  is  the  virulence  of  the  par- 
ticular strain  of  parasites  producing  the  disease. 
And  the  third  involves  the  magnitude  of  the  at- 
tack as  represented  by  the  number  of  parasites 
which  initially  gain  entrance  or  are  produced 
before  the  system  rouses  itself  to  repel  the  un- 
expected attack. 

Those  persons  who  die  during  the  epidemic 
are  those  who  have  become  previously  weakened, 
and  who  are  subjected  to  a  very  heavy  attack. 
Those  who  are  ill  for  a  time  and  then  recover  are 
those  who  are  weakened  to  a  less  extent  or  who 
became  inoculated  with  fewer  bacteria. 

In  any  epidemic,  many  persons  appear  to 
escape  attack  entirely,  but  frequently  this  must 
be  more  of  appearance  than  of  reality.  Given  a 
normally  healthy  person  bitten  by  a  single  insect 
which  inoculates  him  with  only  a  few  pathologi- 


Disease  and  Immunity  1 03 

cal  germs,  his  blood  reaction  easily  wipes  out 
the  few  germs  which  did  gain  entrance,  and  in 
doing  that  his  system  develops  slightly  its  powers 
of  meeting  and  killing  this  kind  of  germ.  A 
little  later  he  is  bitten  again,  and  again  is  inocu- 
lated, but  does  not  know  it.  In  overcoming  this 
second  slight  attack  his  powers  of  combating  this 
particular  germ  are  still  further  developed.  If 
the  disease  is  continually  present  in  the  neighbor- 
hood he  is  continually  being  attacked,  and  in 
continually  fighting  such  attacks  he  develops  his 

powers  of  resisting  this  particular  disease  until 
he  is  fully  capable  of  resisting  such  attacks,  no 

matter  how  great  they  may  be. 

Real  but  unnoticed  attacks  by  disease  produc- 
ing bacteria  must  be  quite  frequent.  Postmortem 
examinations  show  that  this  is  true  of  tubercu- 
losis. The  system,  in  fighting  such  attacks, 
builds  up  its  powers  of  resisting  that  particular 
disease  the  same  as  fighting  the  virus  of  cowpox 
builds  up  the  powers  of  resisting  smallpox.  And 
the  same  thing  must  be  true  in  the  vegetable 
world.  For  example,  when  phylloxera  first  at- 
tacked the  American  vines,  there  must  have  been 
some  cases  in  which  the  attack  was  so  light  as 


104  Disease  and  Immunity 

not  seriously  to  injure  the  vine.  In  fighting  this 
light  attack  the  vine  would  build  up  its  powers  of 
resistance  so  that  later  it  would  be  able  to  resist 
a  more  severe  attack. 

Resistance  to  disease  is  an  inheritable  thing 
which  passes  from  parent  to  offspring.  But  an 
offspring  cannot  inherit  from  a  parent  something 
which  the  parent  did  not  have.  We  know  that 
a  parent  can  build  up  his  general  powers  by 
general  exercise,  and  that  he  can  build  up  his 
powers  of  resisting  a  particular  disease  by  fight- 
ing that  disease  or  some  modified  form  of  it. 
Briefly,  the  offspring  inherits  the  identical  thing 
which  the  parent  acquires  by  his  effort  and  exer- 
tion, and  there  is  not  a  particle  of  evidence  of 
any  kind  that  any  animal  or  plant  can  come  into 
possession  of  powers  of  resisting  disease  in  any 
other  way  than  by  direct  acquirement  or  in- 
heritance of  such  acquirement.  Natural  im- 
munity is  nothing  else  than  an  inherited  power 
coming  from  an  ancestor  who  acquired  that 
power  by  effort  and  exertion. 


INDEX 

Acquired   character    82 

Activity    23 

Age  of  parents x.,  30,  45,  54,  66,  72,  11 

Amoeba    87 

Anthrax    28,  91 

Ape    70,   72 

Bacteria    27,   95 

Binet   system    22 

Birth  control   29,  40,  48 

Blood  reaction   26,  91 

Brain  power    vii. 

..brothers    75,  11 

Calmette    20 

Chicago    49 

Climate 20,  61,  63,  66 

Cows    17,  26 

Customs 57,  60,  74 

Cuttings    20 

Darwin   vi.,  13 

Development  by  exercise 15,  17,  21,  80 

Diagram    48 

Disease   82,  94 

Education  ZZ,  82 

Endogamy   57 

Energy 15,  1Z,  84,  94 

"Eugenics    viii.,    68,    71 

Evolution ix.,  55,  71,  1Z 

Exercise ix,,   15,  21,  27,   dZ,  87 

Exhaustion    86,   94 

Exogamy    57,  74 

105 


1 06  Index 

•**  Feeble-mindedness    49 

Fever    95 

Flagelatta    86 

Foot   pounds 79,   83 

Function    xi. 

Generations x.,  45,  53,  66,  78 

^^BCerm   cells    89 

Germplasm   24,  25 

Goldsmith   Af aid    16 

Grandparents  44,  65 

Guinea  pigs 92,  93 

Henslow 21 

Hybrids    90 

Idleness  23,  92 

Immunity   96,  101 

Improvements vi.,  viii.,  55,  65 

Increased   powers 15,   23 

Inheritance xi.,   17,  64,  67,  93,  97 

Intelligence 62,  70,  83 

Ishmaels   52 

Jukes   53 

Kallikaks   50 

Kemble    family    Z7 

Lamarck    38 

Learning    22 

Lee   family    30 

Life   79 

Load 86,  91,  93 

Longevity    70 

Marriage  customs 58,  60,  74 

..—Measles   98,  100 

Mendel    vii. 

Mental  power x.,  22 

Mice   X.,  92 

Milk    Ig 


Index  107 

Mulattos    viii. 

New   England    46 

Normal   pedigrees 47,  49 

Origin   of    Species vi. 

Overload  86,  91 

Pasteur   28,  91 

Plants 20,   23,   25 

Poisons   20 

-^Protoplasm    27,   87 

Races vi.,  vii.,  59,  72,  74,  96 

-Resistance viii.,   95,  98,   104 

Seeds 21,  24,  25 

Selection vii.,  21,  24,  55 

Selective    death    rate 98 

.-Sexual  reproduction  89 

r  Smallpox 25,  97,  99 

Snake  venom   20 

Speed    16 

Spontaneous  generation   xi. 

Stentors 88 

Sunflower    21 

Tables 16,  18,  19,  47,  49,  54,  11 

Training 14,   17,   67,   85 

Tribes    56,  67 

Trotters 16,  64,  80 

Vaccination    27,  97 

Variations 13,  14,  1Z 

Vigor    90 

Vitality    viii.,    15 

War 56,  62,  66,   68 

Youngest  son 30,  32 


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